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EDUCATION AND 
WORLD CITIZENSHIP 



CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

C. F, CLAY, Manager 

LONDON : FETTER LANE, E.C. 4 




NEWYORK : THE MACMILLAN CO. 

BOMBAY 1 

CALCUTTA V MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. 

MADRAS J 

TORONTO : THE MACMILLAN CO. 

OF CANADA, Ltd. 
TOKYO : MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



EDUCATION 

AND 

WORLD CITIZENSHIP 

AN ESSAY TOWARDS A SCIENCE 
OF EDUCATION 



BY 

JAMES CLERK MAXWELL GARNETT 

C.B.E., M.A. 

Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; Barrister-at-law; 
General Secretary of the League of Nations Union; Late 
Principal of the Manchester Municipal College of Techno- 
logy, and Dean of the Faculty of Technology in the Victoria 
University of Manchester 



CAMBRIDGE 

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
I 921 



v-^^ 



1^ 



If any man think that he knoweth anything 
he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. 

S. Paul. 






6^7 



PREFACE 

THE object of the enquiry described in this book is stated on 
the title-page and further explained in the opening chapter. 
It is to attempt, in the light of modern knowledge of physiological 
psychology, to formulate, however tentatively, a few simple and 
general principles of education, and so to take a further step 
towards a science of education. The need, and even the duty, 
of making this attempt became more and more impressed upon 
me during eight years of work for the Board of Education and 
eight following years of work for education in the North of 
England.... The enquiry has been in progress for most of this 
latter period, and many of the conclusions reached have been 
applied in practice by the university and the college of which I 
was then a member. Some of these results have formed the 
subject of lectures, addresses and papers that have already been 
printed. 

The present volume, of which the first draft was finished in 
July, 1919, is divided into three 'Books.' 

Book I is introductory and historical. 

Book II is concerned with the aim of education. It is sum- 
marised in Chapter 19 which the reader is advised to look at 
before beginning this section of the work. There should then be no 
difficulty in following the argument; for, although mathematical 
analysis has not been wholly dispensed with, its use has been con- 
fined to footnotes and appendices which the non-mathematical 
reader may neglect. In the course of Book II, I was brought 
face to face with several philosophical issues. These I deUberately 
abstained from avoiding. I am consequently prepared to find 
that, here especially, many of the positions I have taken up may 
prove to be provisional only.... The investigations described in 
Book II, and especially in Chapter 17, first made me realise 
that a perfect system of education must be world-wide; or, at 
least, that, in the interests of human progress, the ultimate aim 
of education should be the same the world over. So it is that 
'world citizenship' appears upon the title-page. 

Book III treats of a system of education designed to achieve 
the aim set forth in Book II. But, if such a system of education 
was to be described within reasonable limits, it became necessary to 



/>i" 



vi PREFACE 

focus attention upon a smaller and more homogeneous community 
than the whole 'Great Society' of mankind. Accordingly — 
although Book III, particularly in Chapter 21, deals with the 
manner in which the principles formulated in Book II may be 
applied to any system of education designed to achieve the aim 
therein defined — most of Book III, summarised by the coloured 
plate facing p. 319, is specially concerned with a national system 
of education that might be established in England within the next 
decade, if only the League of Nations is sufficiently supported by 
public opinion to make large-scale war impossible, and to set free 
for productive expenditure most of the money that is still being 
dissipated upon armaments. 

To William James, I owe far more than I can express or even 
estimate; and to Dr William McDougall, who now occupies 
William James' chair of psychology, I am deeply indebted, not 
only for the stimulus of his writings, but also for his great kind- 
ness in reading and commenting upon my typescript while he was 
busily preparing to migrate from Oxford to Harvard. I am also 
most grateful to my former colleague in Manchester, Professor 
Alexander, and to two other friends — Professor John Adams and 
Professor Percy Nunn — who also read my typescript during the 
spring of 1920 and sent me valuable suggestions. I cannot omit 
a word of thanks to Miss Eira Davies who prepared the typescript 
and willingly gave me much other effective help during more than 
a year. And I should like, in a very special degree, to thank my 
father, who has twice read my proofs, and to whom I have always 
been able to look for advice, assistance, and encouragement. 

But to my wife's interest and cooperation, the possibility of 
writing the book at all has been due. Since the work began, she 
has allowed it to have the first claim upon my vacations as well 
as upon my spare moments during term. To her I dedicate the 
book. 



J.C. M. G. 



Hampstead, 
January, 1921 



Table of Contents 



BOOK I 

INTRODUCTION 

Chapter i. The Object and Method of the Present En- 
quiry 

Chapter 2. The Aims of Education in the Past . 

Chapter 3. The Present Position 



PAGE 

3 

12 

19 



BOOK II 
THE AIM OF EDUCATION 

Chapter 4. Education and Neurology 



PTE 


r 5. Neurograms 


§1 


Neurograms or Neural Dispositions 


§2 


Psychoses and Neuroses 


§3 


Instincts and Emotions 


§4 


Sentiments .... 


§5 


Interest-Systems 



Chapter 6. Involuntary Thought 

§ I. The First Law: Psycho-neural Parallelism 

§ 2. The Second Law: Diffusion 

§ 3. The Third Law: Inhibition by Drainage 

Chapter 7. Will and General Ability 

§ I. Psycho-physical Interaction 

§ 2. Will-power, the single general factor in human qualities 

§ 3. Cleverness, a group factor in intellectual qualities 

§ 4. The Fourth Law : Free Will 

§ 5. Educabihty of Will . 

§ 6. Will in Everyday Life 

Chapter 8. Purpose 

§ I. Purpose-Neurograms . 

§ 2. Formation of Purpose-Neurograms 

§ 3. Influence of Purposes on the Stream of Thought 

§ 4. Dr Webb's Group Factor in Character Qualities 



27 

42 
42 
50 
51 
58 
62 

65 

65 
66 
70 

95 

95 

98 

119 

127 

135 

138 

143 

143 
149 

152 

155 



Vlll 



CONTENTS 



Chapter 9. Conflict 

§ I. Opposing Interest-Systems 

§ 2. Resoluticn of Conflicts .... 

§ 3. Two Types of Conflict .... 

Chapter 10. Some Characteristics of Reasoning 

Chapter ii. The Organisation of Thought 

§ I. The World of Experience .... 

§ 2. The Endarchy of Science .... 

§ 3. Growth of the Endarchy of Science 

§ 4. Maximal Endarchies 

§ 5. Efficiency and Utility in Thought Organisation 

§ 6. Subdivisions of Knowledge 

§ 7. The Value of an Essence .... 

Chapter 12. Neurographies 

§ I. The Nature of Individual Neurographies 

§ 2. Individual Neurographies and the Endarchy of Science 

§ 3. Personal Endarchies 

§ 4. The Central Elements in Personal Endarchies 

Chapter 13. Curiosity; and the Involuntary Growth of 
Single Wide Interests 

Chapter 14. Reasoning; and the Voluntary Development 
OF Single Wide Interests 

§ I. WiU and Curiosity 

§ 2. The First Period of Conscious Work . 
§ 3. The Interval of Unconscious Work 
§ 4. The Second Period of Conscious Work 
§ 5. An Illustration and a Digression 
§ 6. A Personal Endarchy facilitates Reasoning 
§ 7. Will, the principal factor in developing Single Wide 
Interests 



Chapter 15. The Fifth Law 

§ I. The End of a Train of Thought . 

§ 2, The Fifth Law fits Experience 

§ 3. Pedagogic Corollaries: Practical Work in Schools 

Chapter 16. Conduct 

§ I. Conduct as affected by Neurography . 

§ 2. Conduct as affected by Will , . . . 

§ 3. The Five Laws of Thought. . . . . 



CONTENTS 



IX 



Chapter 17. Character .... 

§ I. Character and Conduct 
§ 2. Character, Neurography and Will 
§ 3. Character in the perfect Commonwealth 
§ 4. Character and Progress 
§ 5. The Christian Hypothesis . 

Chapter 18. The Aim of Education 

Chapter 19. The Aim of Education — Summary 



290 
290 
293 
295 
303 
305 

311 
312 



BOOK III 
A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 



Chapter 20. Types of Social Service . 
§ I. Some Principles of Selection 
§ 2. Classification of Services 

Chapter 21. Applications of Principles 

§ I. The Power of Education 

§ 2. Training the Will 

§ 3. The Central Purpose . 

§ 4. The Scientific Endarchy and Organised Thought 

§ 5. A Single Wide Interest: not Separate Subjects 

§ 6. The Growth of a Single Wide Interest 

§ 7. Continuity in Education 

§ 8. Contrasted Types of Study . 

§ 9. Handwork ...... 

Chapter 22. A Flow-Diagram of Education 

§ I. Introduction 

§ 2. The Province as a Unit 

§ 3. The Horizontal Scale 

§ 4. The Vertical Scale 

§ 5. Types of Education 

§ 6. Types of School 

§ 7. Scholarships and Maintenance Allowances 

Chapter 23. Types of Education . 

§ I. Nursery Education .... 
§ 2. Elementary and Preparatory Education 
§ 3. Secondary Education: Junior, Intermediate, and Ad 
vanced 



319 
319 
325 

331 

331 

332 
334 
335 
336 
340 
349 
351 
361 

363 
363 
365 
367 

368 
372 
373 
374 

376 
376 
377 

383 



CONTENTS 



§ 4. University Entrance . 

§ 5. Undergraduate Studies 

§ 6. Graduate Study and Research 

§ 7. University Part-time Studies 

§ 8. Senior Technical Education 

§ 9. Advanced and Miscellaneous Part-time Studies 

§ 10. Senior Secondary Education 

§ II. Intermediate Part-time Studies 

§ 12. Senior Elementary Education 

§ 13. Junior and Senior Part-time (Secondary) Education 

§ 14. Byways of Education . 

Chapter 24. Types of School and College 

§ I. Public Spirit 

§ 2. Universities 

§ 3. Senior Technical Schools 

§ 4. Secondary Schools 

§ 5. Junior Technical Schools 

§ 6. Part-time Secondary Schools 

§ 7. Elementary Schools 

§ 8. Summary .... 

Chapter 25. A National Scholarship System 
§ I. Maintenance Allowances 
§ 2. Provincial Authorities 
§ 3. Multiplicity of Scholarships 
§ 4. Methods of Selection . 

Chapter 26. Teachers . 

Appendix A. The 'Broad Foundation ' Metaphor 

B. Mathematical Appendix to Chapters 7 and 8 

C. Note on Maximal Endarchies 

D. Note on Hobbies and Holidays . 

E. Provinces of England and Wales . 

F. A Higher School Certificate examination 

G. The cost of a National Scholarship System 
H. University PIducation and Local Rates 

Index 



DIAGRAM 
A National. System of Education 



to face p. 319 



%,^ 



BOOK I 

INTRODUCTION 



CHAPTER 1 

THE OBJECT AND METHOD OF THE PRESENT ENQUIRY 

'I'm not an educationist and I hope I never shall be' said one who, 
years ago, ranked high in the administration of English education: 
'the greatest man who was ever in this Office,' according to his 
colleague who told me the story. Small wonder that he was reputed 
great, even greatest ! In holding that his wide general knowledge of 
education was unsystematic, inexact, amateurish, he must have been 
unique. Rare indeed is the man who does not think himself expert in 
education. 'Even if he has had none, he is ready to say how much 
(or how little) he has missed it, or what it ought to have been if he 
had had it.'* 

So our friend was great in disclaiming expert knowledge. But 
was he great in refusing to hope for it, even to strive for it, although 
its acquisition might well have seemed hopeless? Hopeless enough 
it was in all appearance; for our friend, had he lived until our own 
day, might still be excused for denying the existence of any generally 
accepted principles of education. ' Plato disagrees with you ' was the 
crushing rejoinder made quite recently by an ex-President of his 
University Union, to whom the writer had suggested that education 
might become a science ! 

We recognise expert or systematic knowledge in any branch of 
natural science when we find a body of closely connected propositions 
which, with their logical consequences, all the recognised experts in 
that science agree to accept as corresponding with experience — not 
merely their own experience, but also so much of other people's as 
they are able to disentangle from the interpretations which those 
other people have put upon itf . Thus any two expert mathematicians 
or physicists or chemists or engineers, discussing matters relating to 
their science, will be able to assume from the outset a number of wide 
generalisations upon which both are agreed: generalisations which 

* Professor Arthur Smithells, F.R.S., Presidential Address to the Society of 
British Gas Industries. (3rd March, 1911.) 

•f The systematic or expert character of this knowledge still remains, when 
subsequent discoveries have disproved its truth: the Ptolemaic astronomers were 
not less expert in their science, after Copernicus had shewn that the facts might 
be more simply (and therefore more credibly) accounted for by a different 
hypothesis. 



4 INTRODUCTION I. 1 

connect together, and thus 'explain,' a much larger number of facts. 
So nearly universal is this agreement that when two expert chemists 
disagree before a court of law, not upon the validity of one of the 
generalisations which form the principles of their science, but merely 
upon the question whether a particular fact belongs to one generalisa- 
tion or to another, their disagreement is sufficiently remarkable to 
excite comment. 

But, when the discussion is of education, disagreement concerning 
first principles is the rule rather than the exception. There is little 
agreement concerning the end of education, and still less concerning 
the means. Even the agreement that does appear to exist is often 
fictitious and due either to the misuse of metaphor or to the absence 
of any esoteric or symbolic language in which ideas concerning 
education can be unequivocally expressed. And yet the need for 
established principles of education and for the general recognition of 
such principles is beyond dispute. It is only by means of organised 
systems of ideas that our thinking, whether of education or of any 
other matter, can make permanent progress; and it is only by the 
wide acceptance (which need not be other than provisional) of a single 
set of principles that a coherent and effective system of public 
education may be built up. For such a system implies a number of 
schools and colleges cooperating with each other and with the in- 
dustries, commerce and other -departments of the life of the people 
so that the effect which each school or college in turn produces upon 
the development of the person being educated shall be continuous 
with that which precedes as well as with that which follows it. Not 
until such a system of education has been established will there be 
any assurance that, as the pupil passes from school to school or from 
form to form, each teacher in turn will not aim at undoing what his 
predecessor has done. Meanwhile, in England and Wales alone, 
;^36,ooo,ooo of pubhc money was, before 1914, being spent yearly 
on elementary education, and many other millions on higher education 
in addition. And, since the purpose of this expenditure must be either 
to modify or to facilitate the development of individuals so as to 
produce the several types of men who shall not only render the 
multifarious service required by the community, but also realise their 
best selves in that service, the need for a larger measure of agreement 
among educators is evidently urgent. 

Our friend who, in spite of his responsibility for the administration 
of national expenditure on education in England, hoped that he never 
would be an 'educationist' ought then rather to have striven to 



I. 1 OBJECT AND METHOD OF PRESENT ENQUIRY 5 

understand, and even to construct, principles of education. The 
hopelessness of such a task was no sufficient excuse for failing to 
attempt it. Mr Bergson has reminded us that tasks which seemed 
impossible to sedentary thinkers may nevertheless be accomplished 
by acts of faith. For example, the impossibility of swimming might 
be demonstrated by one who should shew that unless a man could 
float he could not swim and unless he could first swim he could not 
float; and yet this arm-chair logic is stultified by the action of the 
man of faith who, leaping in and struggling, finds that he can swim. 

If the apparent hopelessness of the task which our friend refused 
to attempt was no sufficient excuse for his refusal, such an excuse is 
still less valid to-day. Much fine work has been accomplished in 
recent years by physiologists and psychologists. It is, more than ever 
it was, the duty of those who are concerned with the administration 
of education to formulate the principles * upon which they are acting 
and to endeavour to coordinate them with the principles that underlie 
the practice not only of their colleagues in the service of education, 
but also of those who control the training of young people who have 
passed from their last school or college into the employment by which 
they mean to serve their fellows and to earn their daily bread. The 
present essay is an attempt to perform this duty ; and its publication 
is intended to stimulate other educators to make similar but more 
successful attempts. 

The first step in the direction of securing more general agreement 
concerning the principles of education should be to give up the use — 
or, at least, the misuse — of metaphor. The prevalence of metaphors 
in educational literature, in its prosaic official reports f as well as in 
the poetic writings of distinguished ex-officials, is responsible for much 
of the obscurity which now envelopes educational thought. The plain 
man readily adopts and employs a metaphor, even a mixed metaphor 
like that of the ' broad foundation of general culture,' J when he would 
never agree to the psychological theories it implies. He supposes that 
the metaphor by which he has been misled expresses in plain language 
a general principle capable of universal application, its limitations 
having been concealed from him by a change of metaphor whenever 
his author sees that absurdities are about to appear§. Mr Stelling 

* Such principles must, of course, be consistent with all the facts known to 
those who formulate them. f See Appendix A. | See Appendix A. 

§ ' For many minds, to say "as the twig is bent so is the tree inclined" not 
only illustrates the aphorism "train up a child in the way he should go, and when 
he is old he will not depart from it," but actually proves it ' (Adams, Evolution 
of Educational Theory, p. 286.) 



6 INTRODUCTION 1. 1 

never realised that his whole system of education would have to be 
changed were he to regard Tom TuUiver's mind as an intellectual 
stomach with a delicate digestion instead of as a field whose culture 
demanded ploughing and harrowing by such potent implements as 
etymology and grammar (to which poor Tom's mind was peculiarly 
impervious) in order to prepare it for the receipt of any subsequent 
crop! '0 Aristotle,' adds George Eliot, 'had you been the freshest 
modern instead of the wisest ancient, would you not have mingled 
with your praise of metaphor a complaint that to-day we are seldom 
able to say what a thing is except by saying that it is something 
else ! ' 

When metaphors have been banned, at least for a while in order 
to enable the literature of education to recover a more healthy tone, 
the next step is to permit a more general use of esoteric or symbolic 
language*. So long as writers and speakers continue to use, without 
defining, such words as character, culture, imagination, or interest, 
words which are used every day with a variety of different meanings, 
so long will each of their readers or hearers put his own interpretation 
upon the word in question, if indeed he trouble to give it any clear 
interpretation at all. So long therefore will it remain impossible to 
convey, or to secure agreement concerning, precise conceptions of the 
facts or principles of education. So long, too, will any close connexion 
between education and most branches of social service — education 
and industry, for example — appear incongruous to many people. Is 
there not a great gulf fixed, say they, between hazy views of education 
high in the clouds above and the hard facts of science or technology 
down in the depths beneath? And yet the intimate relation of 
education to industry is obvious enough ; for of all that goes to make 
industry possible, let alone prosperous, the human element is by far 
the most important. 

After seizing upon the facts themselves, instead of upon quite 
different facts contained in a metaphor, and after expressing the true 
facts in unequivocal even if technical language, the third step to- 
wards the formulation of principles is to select from among the vast 
mass of available material a limited number of facts to be associated 
together by means of a generalisation. The selection of the simplest 
facts and their relation to one another by means of wide generalisa- 

* Cf. W. McDougall: 'When we come to describe the facts of consciousness 
we find that the notions and the words in popular use are very inadequate to the 
work of analytic description... the greatest authorities have not yet learnt to use 
the same descriptive terms, or to apply the same terms in exactly the same senses.' 
{Psychology, pp. 42 and 47.) 



1. 1 OBJECT AND METHOD OF PRESENT ENQUIRY 7 

tions is, according to one of the greatest of mathematicians*, the 
method by which all systematic knowledge of natural science has 
been organised ; and the same method is that by which we instinctively 
acquire such organised knowledge as we possess of the world in which 
we live. 

The selection of certain facts in order to make our main lines of 
association, our first generalisations, our principles, will involve 
ignoring other facts, to some of which however we may afterwards 
return and relate them to our organised body of knowledge by means 
of other secondary generalisations ; further sets of facts may then be 
related to these; and so on. Moreover, as Poincare has pointed out, 
it is of the first importance that the facts selected for linking up by 
the earliest generalisations shall be simple] facts, simpler perhaps 
than can be directly perceived by our senses. A direction and position 
in space, represented by a line having length without breadth or 
thickness, is an example of such a simple fact. It is just the kind of 
fact that would be included in our first generaHsations were we to 
begin the systematic study of any material object, whether the leg of 
a table, the continent of Europe, or the Dresden Madonna. And this 
remains true, notwithstanding the entire absence of a line as we have 
defined it from any of these objects as apprehended by our senses J. 
In short, we are accustomed to think — and this is the more true the 
more precise we want our thinking to be — not of things as they really 
are, but of simplified and organised representations or abstracts which 
for the purpose in hand correspond in all essential respects with more 
complex sense impressions of those things. Such abstracts are more 
easily and more accurately reasoned about than the more complex 
sense impressions. Thus, if we wish to determine the area of a triangular 
field, we do not think of the field with its crop of wheat, its boundary 
hedges, its sandy soil, its flatness, its view of the sea, its summer heat 
and its winter cold; but we think quite simply of an imaginary 
triangle having more in common with the plan of the field included 
in the title deeds than with the field itself as it appeals to our senses. 
And the reason is given by Bergson: 'Whatever is geometrical in 
things is entirely accessible to human intelligence. '§ 

* Henri Poincare, Science and Method, pp. 17, 18. f Science and Method, p. 18. 

X Cf. Bernard Hart: 'Atoms are merely constructions of the scientific imagina- 
tion.... The ether and its waves have never been observed in nature, they have 
been invented by the scientist in order to explain the facts of light and heat. 
But their actual non-existence does not in the least vitiate the value which they 
have for science. They enable us to resume and predict a vast number of facts, 
and this is the sole justification which a scientific law is ever required to possess.' 
{The Psychology of Insanity, p. 15.) § Creative Evolution, p. 200. 



8 INTRODUCTION 1. 1 

For accurate and easy thinking about education it is necessary to 
make use of the same method : to select the facts about which to think 
and, above all, to choose facts which are simple, even if imaginary 
like the line which represents the direction of a hedge. Thus, in 
formulating principles of education, we shall for the most part focus 
our attention upon the comparatively simple material aspects of the 
brain, rather than upon the mind or soul, of the person being educated. 
This procedure implies no low material view of education. It does 
not suggest that education is concerned with the central nervous 
system rather than with the soul, although it recognises that the soul 
can only be reached by human educators through the brain of the 
pupil. Nor does it assume that we know more of the brain than we 
do of the soul: the contrary is more probably the case. But, as 
Huxley pointed out, ' there can be little doubt that the further science 
advances, the more extensively and consistently will all the phenomena 
of Nature be represented by materialistic formulae and symbols.'* 
Bergson states the same truth more fully. ' The intellect,' he writes 
' is characterised by a natural inability to comprehend life.' | And again, 

'The intellect is at home in the presence of unorganised matter 

Now, when the intellect undertakes the study of life, it necessarily 
treats the living like the inert, applying the same forms to this new 
object, carrying over into this new field the same habits that have 
succeeded so well in the old; and it is right to do so, for only on such 
terms does the living offer to our action the same hold as inert matter. 
But the truth we thus arrive at... is no more than a symbolic verity. 
It cannot have the same value as the physical verity, being only an 
extension of physics to an object which we are a priori agreed to look 
at only in its external aspect. The duty of philosophy should be to 
intervene here actively.... 'J 

Moreover in reasoning about material things, there is less danger 
of going astray 'between the moment when we meet a proposition 
for the first time as the conclusion of one syllogism, and the moment 
when we find it once more as the premise of another syllogism, '§ by 
forgetting the meaning of the proposition in the meanwhile. Our 
reasoning is therefore more likely to be accurate if, without by any 
means asserting that the brain is merely a material thing, we con- 
centrate our attention upon its material aspects. And then, not only 
will our conclusions more certainly follow from our premises, but a 

* Collected Essays, Vol. i, p. 164 quoted by W. Temple: 'The Nature of Person- 
ality' (p. 2). 

t Loc. cit. p. 174. Bergson's italics. 

J Loc. cit. p. 206. § H. Poincare, loc. cit. p. 48. 



I. 1 OBJECT AND METHOD OF PRESENT ENQUIRY 9 

comparison of these conclusions with observed facts will therefore also 
shew us more certainly if our premises or hypotheses are incorrect*. 
And if from certain premises we deduce conclusions which accord 
with all the observed facts, we shall feel the more sure of the truth of 
the premises themselves and of other unverifiable conclusions drawn 
from them. 

For these reasons we shall, as far as possible, employ 'material- 
istic formulae and symbols' in this enquiry. While, however, we 
recognise and make use of the fact that 'all mental phenomena are 
accompanied by a physiological phenomenon,' f and while we choose 
to imagine the latter, rather than the former, in our discussions, we 
need not suppose that, if we could completely describe the structure 
of the nervous system of any man or animal and had a complete 
knowledge of the laws of the physical and chemical processes that 
occur in it, we should be able to account completely for all the conduct 
of that individual. In fact, we shall not follow Huxley in regarding 
consciousness as no more than an ' epiphenomenon ' caused by the 
play of nervous processes in the brain but neither modifying those 
processes nor reacting upon them. Nor shall we accept the view that 
the processes of mind and brain run parallel to each other but never 
meet or interact, the doctrine of psycho-physical parallelism. On the 
contrary, we shall assume what Dr McDougall calls ' the old common- 
sense view ' that psycho-physical interaction does in fact take place, 
'that soul and body, or psychical and physical processes, interact or 
react upon one another, so that psychical processes play a part in 
determining conduct.' J 

Having pointed out that the first step towards a more coherent 
and effective system of public education is to secure some measure 
of agreement, however provisional, upon the aim of education as a 
whole, and having indicated a starting-point and a method, we are 
ready to proceed with our enquiry concerning principles of education 
with a view to discovering and formulating, however tentatively and 
provisionally, such an aim of education as will be consistent with these 
principles. 

We begin in the next chapter — the second chapter of this first 

* In other words, we shall be more likely to discover our mistake if we attribute 
imaginary properties to the brain than if we erroneoysly imagine properties of the 
mind or soul. 

f Alfred Binet, The Psychology of Reasoning, p. 12. 

X W. McDougall, Physiological Psychology, p. 8, to which reference may be 
made for a summary of the argument for ' psycho-physical interaction ' as against 
' epiphenomenalism ' and ' psycho-physical parallelism.' A fuller statement is given 
in Body and Mind by the same author. 



10 INTRODUCTION I. 1 

book — with a summary of Professor Adams' account of the principles 
of education as they have been accepted in the past. 

In our second book we shall briefly describe a few leading features 
of the human nervous system, and, using the results of some recent 
researches in neurology and experimental psychology, we shall 
formulate five laws of thought consistent with each other and with 
all available facts. While eagerly awaiting new discoveries and 
generalisations that will confirm or modify the accepted facts or 
assumptions upon which these five laws are based, we shall use the 
laws in question as a base for further advance, deducing from these 
laws results that may be compared with experience and, if they fit, 
be accepted along with the laws from which they are derived as 
forming a nucleus around which a science of education may continue 
to grow. Our second book concludes by pointing out that the aim of 
education cannot be determined until the aim of life has first been 
agreed upon; but that, if we assume continuous progress towards 
some far-off goal, whatever that goal may be, to be the aim of human 
life, then we can deduce the aim of education from our five laws of 
thought. The deduction is accordingly made, and a single aim for 
education ultimately formulated. 

The third and final book is concerned with the effect upon a system 
of education — and especially upon the system, if system it can be 
called, at present in operation in England — of adopting and pursuing 
in practice the aim of education defined in our second book. A re- 
formed system of education, consistent with this aim and based upon 
the principles that led us to its definition, is next described and 
illustrated by a diagram. This reformed system is especially adapted 
to English conditions so as to involve the smallest changes in the 
present public provision of education in this country. It is discussed 
in some considerable detail, for it is intended to be capable of being 
brought into operation in England within the next ten years, a decade 
which in any case bids fair to be more critical than any in English 
history. Indeed the future, not of England only but of Christendom, 
largely depends upon harmony of purpose and community of effort 
among the English-speaking peoples. Education is the most powerful, 
if not the only effective, instrument for securing this harmony of 
purpose, that is bound to result in practical cooperation. It is, how- 
ever, lamentably true that England lags far behind the greater part 
of the English-speaking world in its public provision for education. 
The reform of English public education, so as to provide this country 
with a coherent and effective system that will bring every kind of 



I. 1 OBJECT AND METHOD OF PRESENT ENQUIRY ii 

education within the reach of all who are of sufficient educational 
promise, in whatever part of the land they may happen to live and 
however poor they or their parents may happen to be, is one of the 
most urgent needs of the present critical time. It is for this reason 
that our third book, altogether inadequate though it be for a com- 
plete account of a system of education designed to realise the aim 
set forth in the central portion of the present enquiry, is longer than 
would be needed to indicate only a few of the principal changes that 
would follow if this aim, in all its diverse applications to different 
schools and colleges and to different courses of study, were consistently 
pursued by every English educator. 



CHAPTER 2 

THE AIMS OF EDUCATION IN THE PAST 

John Stuart Mill, in his rectorial address to the University of 
St Andrews (1867), defined education as including 'whatever we do 
for ourselves, and whatever is done for us by others, for the express 
purpose of bringing us somewhat nearer to the perfection of our 
nature; it does more: in its largest acceptation it comprehends even 
the indirect effects produced on character, and on the human faculties 
by things of which the direct purposes are different; by laws, by 
forms of government, by the industrial arts, by modes of social life ; 
nay, even by physical facts not dependent on human will, by climate, 
soil, and local position.'* 

According to this definition education includes all those influences 
that operate upon the person being educated from outside himself 
and so modify his nature. But for practical purposes the definition 
is too wide, as Mill was well aware. What we commonly call education 
is that education in which man intervenes f: 'It is a bi-polar process 
in which one personality acts upon another in order to modify the 
development of that other. The process is not only a conscious but 
a deliberate one. The educator has the clearly realised intention of 
modifying the development of the educand.'| 

In prehistoric times, and among the primitive communities with 
which history begins, individual habits and social customs differed 
but little from one generation to another. Evolution was a slow 
process in those days. As was the father, so was the son. Every 
individual's walk in life could be foreseen with small risk of error. It 
was the function of such education as he received to prepare him 

* Quoted by John Adams, The Evolution of Educational Theory, p. 10. To 
Professor Adams' work I am indebted for much that appears in this chapter and 
the next. 

f Huxley, Collected Essays, VoL in, p. 85. Quoted by Adams {lac. cit. p. 30) 
who distinguishes between this human education and that cosmic education which 
consists of wider processes wherein no human educator takes part. 

J Adams, loc. cit. p. 39. Educand is Professor Adams' term for the person 
being educated. We shall follow Professor Adams in its use so as to avoid calling 
the same person by several different names — child, pupil, student — as he or she 
goes from one school to another and so on to college. 



1.2 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION IN THE PAST 13 

for his particular walk in life. 'AH early education is a direct pre- 
paration for the life work of the individual concerned. It is an educa- 
tion ad Aoc... Education begins by being specific.'* The idea of a 
general education which should fit the educand for any walk in life 
to which he might happen to be called arose comparatively late in 
the evolution of educational theory. 

We must distinguish here between specific education — preparing 
the educand for his whole life-work, social as well as vocational — and 
what is technically known in schools as specialisation. 'Specific 
education historically precedes while school specialisation historically 
succeeds the development of the theory of a liberal education. Specific 
education is the form that naturally appeared as soon as humanity 
rose to the possibility of passing on its gains from generation to 
generation. The child was brought up to do what its parents found 
it necessary for them to do in order to carry on life successfully. With 
the coming of the conception of a liberal education there was a tendency 
to a certain rigidity of curriculum because of a natural desire on the 
part of every one to insist on having only those elements that were 
generally recognised as constituting the really free training.'! On the 
other hand, school specialisation consists in the manipulation of the 
elements of this rigid curriculum, often without reference to the life- 
work of the educand. Thus a boy who intends to study science or 
medicine at the university may specialise in classics at school on the 
ground that ' the classics develop the power of sustained and orderly 
thinking '%', or another may specialise in mathematics at school and 
at college in order to win a place in the Indian Civil Service and so 
administer laws in India. 

The specific education of early times was passed on from parent 
to child or was acquired by the educand for himself in the mere 
process of living. It is only in modern states and in very recent times 
that the education of every inhabitant has been dehberately planned. 
But even among primitive peoples it soon became usual for the 
education of the rulers to be given them deliberately, while other 
people were left to make shift with what education they could find 
for themselves. The education given to future rulers aimed specifically 
at preparing them for the whole of their life-work. And, since whoever 
was well educated as prophet, priest, or king must have had his whole 
nature concerned in the process, no distinction was apparent at the 

* Adams, loc. cit. pp. 162, 163. 
\ Adams, loc. cit. pp. 178, 179. 

J Quoted from Dr Alex Hill (formerly Master of Downing College, Cambridge) 
by Adams, loc. cit. p. 211. 



14 INTRODUCTION 1. 2 

earliest stage between the vocational and social aspects of specific 
education *. 

The education of the 20,000 cultured Athenian citizens of the 
time of Socrates was still within the region of the specific. They were, 
in fact, specifically prepared for their life-work of cultured leisure f. 
Theirs it was to govern and defend their city-state, as well as to 
understand and direct the work of the swarming slaves among whom 
were some of the finest craftsmen the world has ever seen. The 
'liberal' education of the free citizen of Athens was wide enough to 
fit him for the performance of these manifold duties. But it did not 
include subjects — Sanskrit, for example, or Egyptian art — which, 
while having no bearing upon the work he would be called upon to 
do, he nevertheless required to know about in order to be recognised 
as ' cultured.' J At this stage the specific education that best prepared 
the free man for his life-work as a citizen was not distinguished from 
the training that best developed him as a man. The vocational and 
social aims continued coalesced. But we must not forget that the 
educational theory here in question was concerned only with the 
education of the citizens who counted. The slaves were specifically 
trained for their several occupations. Relatively to that of the slaves, 
the education of the free citizens was a general education. The specific 
education of the free man was, in fact, the most general education 
practised or conceived. 

In mediaeval Europe, as in ancient Athens, the training of the 
masses of the people for the practice of industrial or artistic crafts 
had Uttle relation to the education of those who were to rule in church 
or state. Indeed, the noble and the learned clerk would probably 
have been unwilling to concede that the apprentice who could not 
read or write had received any education whatever. Education was 
still the preserve of the rulers of the people who were prepared for 
a wide kind of life. But the growing complexity of social organisation 
broke up the ancient unity that marked the life-work for which old 
time rulers had been educated. The specific education provided in the 

* Cf. Adams, loc. cit. pp. 182, 183. 

f Adams, loc. cit. p. 183. 

X Cf. Professor A. N. Whitehead, F.R.S. : 'Classical learning has had its 
moments of triumph. It triumphed with radiant genius in Athens during the age 
of Pericles, a genius so splendid as to beget the theory that all subsequent ages 
should bend their intellectual activities to the parasitic existence of contemplation 
of this radiance. But this was a triumph of modern learning, exactly what I am 
contending for. Happily for mankind there were at Athens no schoolmasters to 
impress upon them that the only wisdom was to be found among the Egyptians. 
Herodotus was a modern of the moderns.' (Address to the Education Section (L) 
of the British Association, Bournemouth, 1919.) 



I. 2 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION IN THE PAST 15 

grammar schools and universities for those who intended to take 
Holy Orders or to follow the profession of law v;as in the hands of 
the clergy. This was a bookish education, Latin being the basis of 
the curriculum. ' For the children of the aristocracy. . .a more elaborate 
form of social training was in vogue. This included much training of 
the body and of manual aptitude in those arts and exercises which 
were practised in the daily life, in the duties and in the amusements 
of the nobility and courtly families. At the time of the Italian 
Renaissance, this type of knightly or courtly education became highly 
developed and elaborate.'* 

The cleric from the university and the courtier from the palace 
school might both claim to have received a general education. Each 
had, it is true, been specifically educated for a different walk in life; 
but their training had not been specialised. The former had studied 
the seven liberal arts; while the 'sons of the nobility and higher 
gentry were able to study whatever subjects their intelligent parents 
chose to select for them, and thus secure a clear advantage for their 
future life by this specific education.' f And yet 'the finished courtier 
that Castiglione describes was no doubt free of all the great courts 
of Europe, but he would have cut a less creditable figure in the circle 
of scholars at a University. It was the increase in the number of 
spheres in which a man could claim to be generally educated... that 
led to the development of [the idea of a still more general education 
which should be] a new opposite to specific education, an education 
that was not intended to prepare a man for this, that or the other 
sphere, however wide, but just to enable him to become a complete 
all round man, a man who was not educated for this or that, but who 
was just educated, and nothing more.'| 

The growth of this theory of a general education that was to fit 
a man, not for this or that sphere of life, however wide and satisfying, 
but for any possible sphere that might claim him — not even for actual 
life at all, but for a sort of potential life§ — was fostered by several 
cooperating causes. ^^ 

In the first place it appealed to those writers who dealt definitely 
with the theoretical aspects of education. 'The tendency of the 
educational theorist is to erect for himself a typical educand, and then 
set about finding the best way to educate him as a mere human being, 
apart altogether from any consideration of the particular rdle that 

* Report of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education on 
Practical Work in Secondary Schools, Appendix B, p. 132. 
f Adams, loc. cit. pp. 165, 166. 
\ Adams, loc. cit. p. 184. § Cf. Adams, loc. cit. p. 183. 



i6 INTRODUCTION 1. 2 

the educand may have to play in life.... The theorist sets up before 
him an ideal of pure cultural education, something that will fit a man 
to fill any post to which he rriay be called.'* And yet, when we 
examine the writings of the theorists with some care, we find that 
' each of them has in view some more or less definite type of man, and 
that their theories are directed towards the moulding of the educands 
on this model.' f 

Another reason for the wide acceptance of the new theory of 
general education was its consistence, if not its confusion, with the 
evident fact that there are certain instrumental subjects, such as was 
Latin in the middle ages, that every educand must study as a pre- 
paration for those further studies that shall specifically prepare him 
for his walk in life. It was not that Latin was supposed to produce 
an effect on the soul that prepared it for the reception of cultured 
ideas; but, quite simply, that Latin was the medium in which all 
higher education was then conducted. In Latin the books were 
written; university lectures were delivered in Latin; and Latin was 
the language of the church. 

Then again the idea of a general education, quite independent of 
the lives which the educands might expect to lead, simplified the 
school curricula at a time when it tended to become intolerably 
complex. For while specific education was still practically universal 
the only way to adapt school education to the growing variety of 
careers that were becoming open to the educands was to add to the 
curriculum every subject which might help to prepare for any one of 
these careers. The increase of knowledge, brought about by the revival 
of classical learning and the beginnings of natural science, added 
further to the volume of school studies. Even in Milton's ideal school 
which still aimed at specific preparation for a particular walk in life — 
that of a sturdy and cultured squire of the commonwealth J — the 
school course extended over nine strenuous years, and had to be 
followed by further specialised courses for those who wished to 
qualify for the professions of law or medicine or theology! At this 
rate, 'encyclopaedic instruction soon became impossible. '§ The 
necessary relief was afforded by the theory of a general education, 
an education in vacuo. And this relief was the more welcome when 
it became a question of educating the masses of the people for their 

* Adams, loc. cit. pp. 176, 177. 

f Professor Adams cites the cases of Milton, Locke, Chesterfield, Montaigne, 
Rousseau, Pestalozzi and Herbert Spencer in support of this statement. Loc. cit. 
pp. 177, 178. 

J Cf. Adams, loc. cit. p. 177. § Adams, loc. cit. p. 208. 



1.2 THE AIMS OF EDUCATION IN THE PAST 17 

almost infinite variety of different occupations as well as for their 
common life as citizens. 

So the schools came to offer a general education more or less 
divorced from any attempt to prepare the educands for their future 
activities, whether vocational or social. There could be no valid 
objection to this in so far as it meant only that schools which prepared 
the educands not directly for life itself but for specific courses in the 
universities confined themselves to those instrumental subjects with- 
out which the further study was impossible. The general preparatory 
courses provided in the Arts Faculties of the universities themselves 
were equally defensible. 

In fact, however, the universities gave up specific education no 
less readily than did the schools. But, as the professions which 
university men entered were already controlled by university men 
who readily accepted university standards in appraising qualifications, 
questions concerning the suitability of university education as a 
preparation for these walks of life did not easily arise. 

The case of the schools was different. Even those schools which 
professed to prepare for the universities must have been attended by 
many pupils who did not afterwards receive a university education. 
There were also many schools which made no such profession, and all 
of whose pupils passed directly into practical life. The parents or 
employers of these pupils, brought up perhaps in a different tradition, 
naturally enquired what the schools had done to prepare their pupils 
for the life which followed school. So abstract a conception as the 
'general education' that we have been discussing would not satisfy 
such critics who 'wanted to know why obsolete and, for practical 
purposes at any rate, useless subjects were taught to the exclusion 
of what the world regarded as essential. A defence had to be found, 
and it was ready to the hands of the school-master in this theory of 
formal training ' * : namely, that the soul possessed a number of 
faculties (of memory, of observation, of invention, and the like) each 
of which could only be developed, or at least could be most effectively 
trained, by the study of certain appropriate subjects at school; so 
that the omission of any one of these subjects would stunt the develop- 
ment of the soul and maim the personality. Formal training was thus 
a simple and by no means abstract conception which critics of what 
appeared impractical in school curricula were ready enough to accept : 
the more so since the truth of the doctrine could not be easily tested. 
Indeed it is only in recent years that experimental psychologists have 

* Adams, loc. cit. p. 209. 

G. E. 2 



i8 INTRODUCTION I. 2 

succeeded in shewing that this doctrine does not fit the facts, so that 
Professor Adams is able to write: 'The balance of expert opinion is 
now so solidly against the general dogma of formal training that as 
an educational force it must be regarded as moribund.'* 

What then? As the dogma of formal training becomes dis- 
credited, its opposite — specific education — comes back to take its 
place as the most widely accepted theory of education. According to 
Professor Adams, ' the whole evolution of educational theory may be 
said to be a great sweep from specific education back again to specific 
education, through a long period during which formal training held 
the field.' t 

* Adams, loc. cit. p. 222, where references are given to some of the Uterature. 
Further references appear below. 
f Loc. cit. p. 225. 



CHAPTER 3 

THE PRESENT POSITION 

We have thus briefly traced the swing of the pendulum from specific 
education to formal training and part of the way back again. But the 
swing back is not yet complete; for there is as yet no general agree- 
ment that education should have a specific aim. In the sequel we 
shall look more closely into the causes of the modern movement 
towards specific education. Meanwhile, we have to estimate the 
present position as nearly as we may. 

The most easily observed characteristic of English education at 
the present time is perhaps its aimlessness*. It is not merely that the 
theorists have been unable to agree among themselves what should 
be the aim of the national system of education as a whole, and what 
should be the aims of each particular school or college in order to 
achieve the aim of the whole. But in actual practice also there is 
dissimilarity and even inconsistency between such individual or 
partial aims as appear to be pursued, and are sometimes confessed, 
by the educational institutions of this country. 'There is no longer 
a universally recognised circle of knowledge constituting a liberal 
education preparatory to specialist studies, as there was in the middle 
ages. Nor is there general agreement... as to the end that should be 
sought by education as a whole. Nor can agreement on such points 
be expected while men differ widely as to the meaning and purpose of 
life.'t 

But wide differences concerning the meaning or purpose of life are 
not related to differences concerning the aim of education simply as 
cause is related to effect: the relation is also that of effect to cause. 
The one kind of difference acts and reacts upon the other. We need 
not, therefore, despair of securing such a larger measure of agreement 
among English educators as shall make for the higher development 

* Cf. Dr Lyttelton, when Headmaster of Eton: 'If Louvain, Rheims, etc. are 
the outcome of falsehoods thoroughly taught, what might be the power of truth 
if taught with equal thoroughness? So we turn to look within [at education in 
England], and find instead of thoroughness divergence of aim; instead of con- 
centration a vast unwillingness to make clear to ourselves what we are trying to 
do.' {Times Educational Supplement, ist August, 1916.) 

f Professor J. Welton, Encyclopaedia Britannica, nth edition, article on 
'Education.' Cf. conclusion of Book 11 below. 



20 INTRODUCTION I. 3 

of individual citizens and for their more effective cooperation in the 
service of the society to which they belong. Even though at first the 
rate of change towards agreement may be very slow, this rate of 
change may grow quickly and soon result in finite progress. 

And, in fact, most writers do not despair of agreement concerning 
the aim of education. Some of those whose opinions carry most weight 
even venture to state what the aim should be. Indeed, it is difficult 
to see how anyone can think clearly or effectively concerning the 
means of education until he has provisionally made up his mind 
concerning its end. Among very recent* pronouncements upon the 
aim of education two may be cited by way of illustration of the 
diversity of view that characterises the age in which we live. 

Sir William Ramsay, in the course of an article on English 
Education, refers to 'the aim of training, namely, the power of 
concentration, the exercise of judgment, and, most of all, the develop- 
ment of the inventive faculties.' f 

Dr C. A. Mercier also regards education as having a threefold aim. 
He writes ' The aims of education are, I take it, these three: It should 
inculcate first, character; second, a habit of clear thinking; and third, 
a knowledge of facts... it is better to be good than to be wise: it is 
better to be wise than to be learned. 'J 

Except that both these statements assign an inferior place in 
education to the mere imparting of knowledge of facts, they appear, 
at first sight, to have little in common. There is a real difference 
between the two aims as stated, in that Dr Mercier's statement 
recognises, while Sir William Ramsay's statement does not recognise, 
the paramount importance of those instinctive (emotional) processes 
which play so important a part in the constitution of character. But, 
as our enquiry proceeds we shall see that the other apparent differences 
between the two statements almost disappear. 

The important points for us to note at this stage are : firstly, that 
the need for more agreement concerning the aim of education is 
becoming increasingly recognised; and secondly, that the statements 
of this aim made from time to time by public men differ widely from 
one another. 

But the most astonishing aspect of the aimlessness of English 
education is not that would-be reformers differently define the objects 
of their efforts. Rather is it that the authorities responsible for 

* This was written in April, 1916. 

f Sir William Ramsay, K.C.B., F.R.S., in the Daily Dispatch of 21st January 

1915- 

J Times, 17th January, 191 5. 



I. 3 THE PRESENT POSITION 21 

spending more than thirty milUon pounds sterHng of public money 
every year on education in England and Wales have given so little 
indication of the aim they have in view, whether for English education 
as a whole, or for that large part of it which they are able to control. 
Even the teachers, on whose hearty and intelligent cooperation the 
achieving of this aim depends, are no better informed than other 
people what the aim may be ! Parliament has, wisely enough no doubt, 
abstained from putting any definition of education on the statute 
book. And in vain do we search official literature for guidance. It is 
true that the introduction to the Public Elementary School Code tells 
us that ' the purpose of the Public Elementary School is to form and 
strengthen the character... '; but we are not told what is here to be 
understood by 'character,' a word that means different things to 
different people and to most people perhaps conveys no clear meaning 
at all; nor are we told in which direction the character is to be trained. 
To these questions we shall return later*. 

Meanwhile, if we are right in describing aimlessness as character-" 
istic of the education of the English nation to-day, defects in our 
national system of education cannot be remedied until our legis- 
lators, administrators and educators are sufficiently agreed upon the 
aim of the whole to enable them to test particular proposals for reform 
by asking whether, and to what extent, each suggested change of 
means would help to secure the end in view. Every one agrees that 
such defects exist and are serious. It is only concerning the nature 
of the defects and the appropriate remedies that people differ. 

The first business of all who are interested in education reform 
should therefore be to make up their minds, in the light of the available 
evidence, what the aim of education ought to be, being ready to 
modify the aim on which they have fixed when further evidence is 
forthcoming. . — 

Professor Adams has enumerated some fifteen statements of the 
aim of education and concludes that 'there are two. ..that stand out 
from the others as embodying all the essentials, and as between them 
covering the whole field.... The first is self-realisation, the second many- 

* In the absence of any general concensus of opinion concerning the aim of 
education, in the absence even of any esoteric language in which to express such 
an opinion without equivocation or risk of misunderstanding, most men fall back 
on metaphor. According to Professor Adams {loc. cit. p. 285), no branch of study is 
perhaps so metaphor-ridden as education and psychology. That is why we began 
in our first chapter by condemning the misuse of metaphor. The most popular 
metaphor to-day is that of the 'broad foundation of liberal education,' which is 
sometimes combined with Pestalozzi's favourite plant metaphor so as to produce 
the mixed metaphor of the ' broad foundation of general culture.' See Appendix A. 



22 INTRODUCTION I. 3 

sided interest. These have been frequently treated as antagonistic 
ideals, and each has its enthusiastic supporters. But . . . far from opposing 
each other they are really complementary. Neither can be attained 
apart from the other.' * 

The aim of Herbart and his followers was to build up in each 
educand a many-sided interest. In order to emphasise its essential 
unity and to avoid asking how many sides the interest is to have, we 
shall describe it as a single wide interest. According to the Herbartian 
theory, education can modify the natural development of the educand : 
indeed the core of Herbart's teaching is that instruction supplies the 
only force that can modify character f. By building up different 
interests in different individuals, the educator is thus able to produce 
men who shall be fitted to serve each other and the community in 
a variety of different occupations. 

Those who advocate self-realisation as the aim of education 
generally maintain that the educand should be protected as long as 
possible from a cramping environment so that he may experience 
a free and full development, which is self-realisation. From Froebel's 
point of view, the educator's function is not to produce men to serve 
the state in this, that or the other capacity; but is rather to watch 
over and protect while the educand freely becomes what his own 
nature makes him. It is true that, as the educand grows older, he 
should gradually become his own chief educator. In the university, 
at least, he should be allowed considerable freedom to choose his own 
courses. Even in the university, however, he will do well to receive 
advice from his tutor or director of studies. And the master or 
mistress in a secondary school not only must in practice, but also 
should in theory, prescribe the greater part of the pupil's studies. 
Rousseau himself, after giving Emile a tutor all to himself (and so 
avoiding the administrative difficulty in the way of allowing each 
pupil in a school to select his own curriculum) made the tutor suggest 
the questions which Emile should ask. He thus interfered with 
Emile's natural development so as to make him become a particular 
type of man : in fact an eighteenth century dandy % . 

Some active interference with the natural development of the 
educand is, indeed, demanded from every educator. Too much 
freedom in early youth leads to the formation of bad habits which 
leave the grown man anything but free. No man can realise his best 
self through selfishness. Whoever aims first at saving his life, loses it. 
To achieve a complete self-realisation it is necessary to aim, in the 
* Loc. cit. pp. 39, 40. f Adams, loc. cit. p. 326. } Adams, loc. cit. p. 178. 



I. 3 THE PRESENT POSITION 23 

first instance, at becoming fit for the service of others*. If then we 
assume that (except in the case of quite young children, under say 
twelve years of age, whose interests are normally multifarious!) the 
two aims, self-realisation and single wide interest, between them 
cover the whole field, it follows that, so far as the facts we have yet 
considered enable us to determine it, the first aim of education during 
adolescence and maturity must be to build up a single wide interest. 
In Book II we shall reconsider, explain and confirm this provisional 
conclusion in the light of further facts. 

* Cf. the Master of Marlborough on character-building in the public schools: 
'In season and out of season we teach that the liberty we largely grant to our 
boys is to be used in the service of the common weal : that a boy must live for his 
society.' (Times, 5th June, 1915.) 

t Cf. W. James' remark that 'Childhood... has few organised interests.' 
Principles of Psychology, Vol. i, p. 417 



BOOK II 

THE AIM OF EDUCATION 



CHAPTER 4 

EDUCATION AND NEUROLOGY 

Our summary of the account given by Professor Adams of The 
Evolution of Educational Theory has been Httle concerned with the 
new science of Physiological Psychology. And in truth the work of 
the physiologists and anatomists has hitherto but little affected 
educational theory. Neurology is seldom discussed at educational 
conferences or at the meetings of associations of teachers. Neurograms 
and synapses do not figure in educational literature. 

But, as we have indicated in our first chapter, we do not propose 
thus to restrict our discussion. Two reasons for departing from the 
practice of most writers on education we have already given*. We 
may now add a third reason, namely that 'many recent advances in 
psychology are directly due to physiological observations ' f ; in fact, 
as Dr McDougall adds, 'our mental life is intimately bound up with, 
and to a great extent conditioned by, the processes of the nervous 
system, and therefore cannot be understood without the aid of 
knowledge of those processes... and it may be confidently predicted 
that psychology will cease to be regarded as a purely academic study, 
and will be recognised as providing the only sound theoretical basis 
for the art of the teacher... in proportion as it becomes a truly physio- 
logical psychology.' J 

We shall therefore employ some of the conceptions of physiological 
psychology in the following attempt to analyse the foundations of 
character and their effect upon behaviour. 

To every thought which passes through the mind, to every feeling 
on the fringe of consciousness, and to every reflex movement of which 
we are unconscious, there corresponds a ' nervous impulse ' travelling 
swiftly along a series of nerve elements and comparatively slowly 
traversing the junctions between the consecutive elements in the 
series; and each different thought or feeling or movement involves a 
different series of nerve elements — different, at least, as regards some 
of its units. 

* See above, pp. 8, 9. f W. McDougall, Physiological Psychology, p. 12. 

X Loc. cit. p. 12. 



28 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 4 

These nerve elements*, or neurones, consist for the most part of 
relatively long axis cylinders projecting from a central nucleus or 
cell-body and, after giving off collaterals at various points, sub- 
divided into a number of branches at their further extremities. The 
cell-bodies also have other projections or processes consisting of many 
fibres that are called 'dendrons' on account of their tree-like forma- 
tion!. Each neurone is separately nourished by its own cell-body; 
it is seldom if ever continuous with its neighbours; but, on the other 
hand, it is no more independent of them than a human individual is 
independent of the society in which he lives: if his neighbours de- 
generate and die, he is likely to do the same. While each neurone is 
thus a separate trophic unit, it is not a separate functional unit; for 
the functional unit of the nervous system is a ' nervous arc ' : a series 
of two or more neurones placed end on to one another and capable 
of conducting a 'nervous impulse' from one to the other across the 
junction, or synapse, between them. The neurones, bound together 
and supported by connective tissue and finely branching neuroglia 
cells, constitute the nervous system. 

The nature of the nervous impulse which it is the function of the 
neurones to conduct is still uncertain. It probably consists in a pro- 
gressive 'partial decomposition of some very complex and unstable 
molecules 'I of which the neurones are composed. The chemical 
activity stimulated in a neurone by the incoming impulse we shall 
call the 'activity' of the neurone. The activity is to be distinguished 

* This chapter's brief account of some of the principal features of the nervous 
system will, it is hoped, enable the general reader sufficiently to understand the 
physiological terms — 'the materialistic formulae and symbols' — which we shall 
employ. But every reader who has not made a special study of the nervous system 
would do well to acquire at least so much information as is given in Dr McDougall's 
attractive primer of Physiological Psychology (published in 1905 by J. M. Dent 
& Co.), and to have at hand some general description and figures of the gross 
anatomy of the nervous system, such as are included in many text-books of 
'anatomy and physiology. 

f Cf. W. McDougall, ' The neurones are of various shapes and sizes, but each one 
consists of a nucleus, which with a certain amount of protoplasm surrounding it 
constitutes the cell-body, and one or more delicate protoplasmic processes [or 
projections] continuous with the cell-body. In many neurones one of these pro- 
cesses is much longer than the rest and is called the axis-cylinder process or axon. 
All the nerve-fibres of the peripheral nerves are axons of neurones. The axon, in 
most cases, has for its protection a delicate sheath of fatty matter known as the 
medulla, and in many cases it is of great length, those, for example, wliich run 
from the spinal cord to the ends of the toes of a tall man are several feet in length. 
Some axons give off at short intervals a number of branches or collaterals, which 
connect them to numerous other neurones. The other processes of the body of the 
neurone are generally shorter and much branched; they are known as dendrons 
because in many cases a single large process of this kind divides, like the stem of 
a tree, into many branches ending in a great number of twigs.' (Loc. cit. pp. 24, 25.) 

J McDougall, loc. cit. p. 28. 



II. 4 EDUCATION AND NEUROLOGY 29 

both from incoming impulses and from outgoing impulses. Of the 
latter some may be due to the activity of the neurone itself and some 
to incoming impulses conducted through the neurone with or without 
loss en route. The ' activity ' of a nervous arc is the sum of the activities 
of the neurones that compose the arc. An arc, or a system of arcs, that 
is being traversed by a nervous impulse we shall speak of as ' excited.' * 
The 'intensity of the excitement' of — or the 'flow' through — an arc 
are terms we shall use to denote the measure of the impulses traversing 
the arc in unit time. 

In many cases the passage of a nervous impulse is accompanied 
by a current of negative electricity travelling along the neurone in 
the same direction as the impulse, and there appears no reason to 
doubt that all nervous impulses are similarly associated with the 
transfer of negative electricity. If this supposition is well founded, 
it follows that to every thought that flits across the mind there 
corresponds not only a nervous impulse traversing the neurones of 
the brain, but also an electro-magnetic wave which is started as the 
electric current rises and falls and which gradually diffuses itself 
throughout all space. It is conceivable that such a wave, traversing 
the brain of another individual, might give rise to nervous impulses 
there and so affect that other individual's consciousness. 

The nervous impulse normally originates in the stimulation of a 
sense-organ and is normally discharged in producing movement. The 
normal path of the impulse is thus from a sense-organ to a muscle. 
In the ideally simple case we may imagine that only two neurones are 
concerned: one sensory or 'afferent,' the other motor or 'efferent'; 
and these two together form a ' sensori-motor arc,' the functional unit 
of the nervous system. 'In the higher animals and in man we must 
distinguish two systems of muscles and two corresponding systems of 
sense-organs. The one system of muscles is attached for the most part 
to the bones of the skeleton, and the contractions of the muscles of 
this skeletal system produce all those movements of the limbs, trunk, 
head, and organs of speech by means of which relations with the outer 
world are maintained. In man these movements are under the control 
of the will.' f ...The muscles of the other system are embedded in the 
viscera, or internal organs of the body, and cannot for the most part 
be controlled by the will. The corresponding sense-organs of the 
visceral system are also embedded in the viscera and are stimulated 

* An arc or a system of arcs which is 'excited' will therefore also be active. 
But, as we shall see, it may continue to be active after it has ceased to be excited, 
i.e. after impulses have ceased to traverse it and to pass on. See below, p. 66. 

f McDougall, loc. cit. p. 16. 



30 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 4 

by movements, changes of pressure, and chemical changes occurring 
in their neighbourhood. The nervous impulse caused by the stimula- 
tion of one of these sense-organs traverses a sensory neurone of the 
visceral system, crosses one or more synapses, and finally travels 
back by a motor neurone of the same system until it reaches the 
visceral muscle, the consequent movement of which adjusts the viscus 
to meet the changes which gave rise to the nervous impulse. In this 
way are brought about the involuntary movements of the heart, 
stomach, and other viscera. It was formerly supposed that this 
system of nerves was quite separate from, and independent of, the 
other larger system. But we know now that 'the two systems of 
sensori-motor arcs, the skeletal or voluntary and the visceral or 
involuntary, are intimately connected. The skeletal muscles are con- 
trolled not only by impulses from sense-organs on the surface of the 
body, but also by impulses initiated in sense-organs that are embedded 
in the muscles themselves and in the surrounding tissues, the sheaths 
of the muscles and their tendons and the joint-surfaces of the bones; 
these sense-organs, which are known as the organs of the "muscular 
[or kinaesthetic] sense," are stimulated by the contractions of the 
muscles and the movements of the parts resulting from those con- 
tractions. The nerves from these sense-organs join the sensori-motor 
arcs that connect the skeletal muscles with the sense-organs of the 
surface, and so cooperate with them in determining the sequence 
and the force of the contractions of these muscles, which are thus 
under a double sensory control as well as the control of the will. 
These are the functional units which with their complicated inter- 
connexions constitute the nervous system. They are represented 
schematically in the diagram.'* 

The sensory or afferent nerves of the skeletal system, including 
those of the kinaesthetic sense as well as those conveying impulses 
from the sense-organs of the body's surface, communicate with the 
motor or efferent nerves of the skeletal system only in the spinal cord 
and in the brain. Many of the sensory neurones, after entering a 
segment of the cord and giving off collaterals which communicate 
immediately — in the same segment — with motor nerves leaving the 
cord from that segment (and which thus provide the paths used in the 
case of spinal reflex movements f), are continued up the cord giving 

* Loc. cit. pp. i6, 17. The diagram (Fig. i on p. 31) is reproduced with modifi- 
cations from p. 17 of Dr McDougall's work. 

I Sometimes the impulse arising from a stimulus applied to a sense-organ of 
the surface of the body or of the muscular sense, will, on reaching the spinal 
cord, give rise to an impulse in the efferent motor neurone alone. No impulse 



II. 4 



EDUCATION AND NEUROLOGY 



31 



off further collaterals in various segments and finally communicating 
in the upper part of the cord with other long neurones which prolong 
the afferent or sensory path until it reaches the cerebrum * or great 




Fig. 1. Diagram illustrating the functional units, the skeletal and visceral sensori- 
motor arcs of each segment of the nervous system of a vertebrate animal: c, the 
central nervous system; m, a skeletal muscle attached to the bone; s, the skin 
covering it; z^, a muscular viscus. On the right is shewn a skeletal arc with double 
afferent path from sense-organs of the skin and from sense-organs of the ' muscular 
sense' in tendon, joint-surface, and muscle: on the left an arc of the visceral 
system with afferent path from sense-organs in and about the viscus. 

[Descending (efferent) fibres, e, connect the brain through synapses in the 
spinal cord, c, with the other neurones represented in the diagram and enable 
skeletal movements to be produced not only reflexly from below, but also voluntarily 
from above. Ascending (afferent) fibres, a, also connecting with the other neurones 
through synapses in the spinal cord, c, enable consciousness to be affected by 
skeletal movements whether of voluntary or reflex origin. There are also other 
ascending (afferent) fibres linking the brain with sense-organs in various parts of 
the body and especially upon its surface. The long neurones, e and a, running 
lengthwise in the spinal cord are not represented in Dr McDougall's original 
diagram.] 



will then travel up the spinal cord. In such cases the resulting movement is 
described as a spinal reflex movement. In the case of dogs it is possible to sever 
all the afferent and efferent paths that connect the brain with the remainder of 
the central nervous system, and yet to obtain these spinal reflex movements. 
Examples are quoted from Professor Sherrington on p. 35. 

* Until recently it was generally believed that everj' sensation was accompanied 
by activity in certain sensory regions of the cortex or outer layer of the cerebrum. 
But the researches of Dr Henry Head and Dr Gordon Holmes, beginning with 
those described in the Croonian Lectures of 191 1 (see Brain, Vol. 34, Nov. 191 1, 
pp. 102 et seq.), have shewn that two bodies known as the optic thalami and 



32 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 4 

brain on the side of the body opposite to that in which the impulse 
originated by the stimulation of a sense-organ. The sense-organs of 
all parts of one side of the body are thus connected with the cerebrum 
on the opposite side * . Not until it reaches the cerebrum does a nervous 
impulse originating in a physical stimulus to a sense-organ give rise 
to sensation. But sensations do not always result from a physical 
stimulus acting on the peripheral nervous system even though the 
stimulus may be adequate in quantity and quality to produce sensa- 
tion under more favourable conditions. Indeed, as we have just seen, 
' many afferent impulses remain on the physiological level and never 
form the basis of a sensation; they are destined to control reflex 
activity or to coordinate movements of the body and limbs.' j 

We have said that the sense-organs of all parts of one side of the 
body are connected with the cerebrum on the opposite side J. The 
nerves of the special senses — for example, sight, hearing or smell — 
are also connected with the opposite side of the cerebral cortex §. 
In this way the sensory neurones of all parts of the body are connected 
with the cerebrum, and those of each of the principal senses — tactile, 
kinaesthetic, visual, auditory, olfactory, etc. — are connected with a 
certain 'sensory area' of the cortex or outer layer of the cerebrum. 

When the fibres, by which the various sensory paths are thus 
continued to the cerebrum, enter the layer of grey matter which 
constitutes the cortex, we can no longer trace their connexions 
anatomically in the dense tangle of neurones which are the principal 
constituents of this grey matter. But we know that from these 
sensory areas fibres pass down to join the various motor neurones 
which convey the nervous impulses to the skeletal or 'voluntary' 
muscles. Thus in the kinaesthetic or 'Rolandic' area are the cell- 
bodies of large neurones, known from their shape as the ' pyramidal ' 

situated one on either side of the^base of the cerebrum are not merely intermediate 
receiving stations or junctions between successive neurones in sensory paths from 
the surface of the body to the cortex of the cerebrum, but are themselves the 
seats of certain primitive elements in sensation. 'Thus, reactions of the human 
optic thalamus, freed from the restricting influence of the cortex, are an almost 
perfect expression of the non-discriminative aspects of sensation.' (Henry Head, 
on 'Sensation and the Cerebral Cortex,' Brain, Vol. 41, Sept. 1918, p. 200.) In 
particular those components of sensation which underlie feeling-tone tend to 
excite thalamic but not cortical centres. (See Head and Holmes, Brain, Vol. 34, 
p. 190.) 

* This is not strictly true of the eyes, where there is partial crossing only. 
For particulars of the bilateral representation of each retina in the brain, see any 
treatise on Physiology or Anatomy. Cf . the diagram given by Dr Purves Stewart 
in The Diagnosis of Nervous Diseases, 4th edition, p. 46. 

f Henry Head, Brain, Vol. 41 (1918), p. 201. 

J But see the last footnote but one. § See the first two footnotes above. 



II. 4 EDUCATION AND NEUROLOGY 33 

cells, whose axons, forming the 'pyramidal tract,' pass down to 
connect directly with the motor neurones whose cell-bodies lie in the 
various segments of the spinal cord and whose axons thence conduct 
impulses to the skeletal muscles of the trunk and limbs. And from 
physiological data we can conclude that the afferent neurones, which 
enter each of the sensory areas, are connected by shorter or longer 
chains of small neurones in the grey matter of the area with the 
efferent neurones of the same area; we are able to infer also that in 
the main the afferent neurones of any one sensory field or region of 
the body are most intimately connected, in the sensory areas of the 
cortex, with the efferent neurones that make connexions with the 
motor systems of the same region, the motor systems that have the 
most intimate functional relations to that sensory field. Similar con- 
nexions between the afferent neurones of any one sensory field and 
the motor neurones of that field are made, as we have seen, in that 
segment of the spinal cord to which enter and from which emerge 
the sensory and motor nerves of the field in question. But we may 
assume that the connexions effected by means of loop lines (or, as 
DrMcDougall calls them, ' arcs of the intermediate level ') that connect, 
through a sensory area of the cerebrum, the sensory and motor 
neurones of the same field — neurones that are already connected in 
the corresponding segment of the spinal cord — are far more complex 
than those of the spinal level and so render possible a far more com- 
plicated series of coordinated movements*. 

A still higher degree of coordination, adapted to still more complex 
situations, is effected by means of the neurones of the large cerebral 
'association areas' which surround various sensory areas of the 
cerebrum and connect them with one another. Series of these neurones 
form arcs among which we may distinguish two principal kinds. 

In the first place there are those which connect the sensori-motor 
arcs of the Rolandic or kinaesthetic area with sensori-motor arcs in 
the other sensory areas of the cortex. They converge upon the 
Rolandic area from all the other sensory areas, and the impulses that 
they bring find, in the large pyramidal neurones already mentioned f, 
their efferent paths to the motor neurones of the skeletal muscles. 
Hence this system of pyramidal neurones with the cortical paths 
converging upon it from all parts of the cortex has been aptly likened 
by Professor William James | to a funnel, the mouth and conical body 

* This account of the sensori-motor arcs of the intermediate level is abridged 
from that given by Dr McDougall, pp. 43-45. 

t P. 32. X ^0'^- ^'''^- ^'ol. II, p. 581. 



34 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 4 

of the funnel being represented by the converging cortical paths, its 
neck by the Rolandic cortex, and its stem, through which the outflow 
takes place, by the neurones of the pyramidal tract. 

A second important class of association-area or ' higher level ' arcs 
consists of arcs that connect with one another the various sensory 
areas, other than the kinaesthetic area, of each of the two hemispheres, 
formed, one on the right side and one on the left, by the cortex and 
adjoining parts of the cerebrum. Moreover, transversely running 
fibres connect each part of one hemisphere with the corresponding 
part, as well as with other parts, of the other hemisphere. 

The superior function of the arcs of these association areas is 
indicated by the fact, clearly demonstrated by Professor Flechsig, 
that the neurones of which they are composed attain structural 
perfection in each individual at a much later age than those of other 
parts of the nervous system. While the latter are fully developed 
at birth, most of the former are not perfected until a much later age, 
some not until adult life is reached*. 

A clearer idea of the functions of the nervous arcs of the different 
levels — spinal, intermediate and higher — may be obtained by con- 
sidering a simple case of the conduction of a nervous impulse from 
its origin in a sense-organ to its discharge in the production of move- 
ment. I imagine myself walking barefoot by the sea shore. Suppose, 
further, that I am, at the same time, engaged in an interesting 
conversation with a friend. Not noticing where I tread, I step — with 
my right foot, let us say — on a sharp pebble. Immediately and in- 
voluntarily my right knee and hip joints are bent so as to lift the 
injured foot, while at the same time my left leg is more rigidly 
extended to take the extra weight thus thrown upon it. 

If the hurt is slight, and if my conversation is sufficiently en- 
grossing, this coordinated series of movements may take place without 
attracting my attention and without the intervention of my will. 
In that case the impulses, which the sharp stone has originated in 
the sensory nerve endings in the sole of my right foot, travel up the 
sensory neurones at the rate of several yards a second. Where these 
neurones enter a segment f of the spinal cord in the lumbar region 
they give off collaterals or branches which connect, through small 
neurones in the grey matter of the segment, with motor neurones 
leading to the muscles of both legs. Parts of the impulses probably 

* This account of the higher level arcs is slightly abridged from that given 
by Dr McDougall, loc. cit. pp. go, 91. 

f This segment is represented schematically by the circle in the diagram on 
P- 31- 



11. 4 EDUCATION AND NEUROLOGY 35 

leave the sensory neurones by way of those collaterals; and, after 
crossing the synapse or synapses in the grey matter of the segment, 
leave it by way of motor neurones whose roots lie in the same segment, 
and whose function it is to conduct the impulse to the flexor muscles 
of the right leg and the extensor muscles of the left*. 

On reaching the muscles, the nervous impulse gives rise to chemical 
changes which result in the contractions of the muscles and the motion 
of the limbs. These movements stimulate kinaesthetic sense-organs 
from which impulses return to the same segment of the cord. As in 
the case of the impulses from the sense-organs of the sole of my foot, 
parts of these impulses probably pass out from the cord immediately 
along the motor neurones, thus serving to maintain and regulate the 
contractions of the extensor and flexor muscles in question. 

Experiments, conducted by Professor C. S. Sherrington, upon 
' spinal ' dogs — dogs the neural connexions of whose brains with their 
spinal cords had been severed — prove that in these ' spinal ' animals 
the stimulation of sense-organs on the sole of one hind foot will result 
in the withdrawal f of that foot and the extension | of the other hind 
leg. In such a case we have to suppose that the whole of the impulses 
arising both from the original stimulus and afterwards from the 
kinaesthetic sense-organs are discharged directly through the spinal 
nerves; for they cannot traverse the higher portion of the afferent 
(sensory) paths which lead to the brain. We have then an example 
of a simple spinal reflex, in which the brain takes no part. And more 
complicated spinal reflexes, involving several segments of the cord, 
may also be evolved in spinal animals; for if a chemical irritant be 
applied to the flank of such an animal the hind foot of the same side 
will make scratching movements § which are almost as well aimed as 
if the animal were entire ; and if that foot be held, then the other hind 
leg will make similar movements. 

But it is probable that in man even so simple an automatic move- 
ment as the withdrawal of one leg and the extension of the other 
cannot take place without affecting the 'fringe of consciousness' — 
the vague background of thought. We must therefore suppose that, 

* The impulse which, crossing a synapse and entering another neurone, acts 
upon it as a stimulus will excite in it katabolic changes. The intensity of the 
resulting impulse in the second neurone may considerably exceed that of the 
impulse which reached it from outside. Cf. Dr McDougall, loc. cit. p. 30. Cf. also 
Dr Keith Lucas who found that in every case which he examined 'the intensity 
of the impulse set up in a nerve is independent of the strength of the stimulus 
which evokes it.' (The Conduction of Nervous Impulse, 1917, p. 92.) 

f The Integrative Action of the Nervous System, p. 10. 

t Loc. cit. p. 30. § Sherrington, loc. cit. p. 10. 

3—2 



36 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 4 

in the case we have imagined, part of the impulses from the sole of 
my right foot (and from the kinaesthetic sense-organs so soon as they 
have been stimulated by the beginning of movement) pursue afferent 
paths as far as the cortex of the cerebrum and thence return, by the 
neurones of the pyramidal tract, to be discharged along the motor 
neurones which produce the movements we have described. They thus 
traverse a long loop through sensory regions of the brain — in the 
thalamus as well as in the cortex — where their passage may, as we 
have seen, make me conscious of pain in my foot and of the move- 
ments of my limbs; and they probably also traverse a shorter circuit 
wholly on the spinal level. In fact the spinal reflex of the spinal dog 
becomes, in man, a 'sensation reflex' affecting consciousness and 
under voluntary control. 

There is much evidence to shew that nervous impulses commonly 
affect consciousness as they pass through the sensory areas of the 
brain: for example, if part of one of the sensory areas of the cortex 
is damaged or removed then the corresponding sensations — visual, 
auditory, olfactory, or the like — can neither be experienced nor 
imagined * . And there is no evidence that any psycho-physical process 
takes place as impulses traverse either arcs of the spinal level or the 
'higher level' arcs of the cortex which lie outside the sensory areas f. 
In fact, so far as we yet know, all sensation is accompanied by activity 
in the neurones either of the optic thalami or of one of the sensory 
areas J of the cortex. 

The further effects of the long loop through the cerebral cortex, 
and of all the complex connexions which can there be made between 
various sensori-motor arcs, may be indicated by supposing that the 
injury to my foot was somewhat sharper than in the case we have 
just considered. Unless my attention was very much occupied I may 
have become conscious, not only (as in the case already considered) 

* Cf. McDougall: 'So long as any sensory area is intact the corresponding 
qualities of sensation may be experienced, and even though the sense-organ be 
destroyed or the sensory nerves severed the sensations may still be experienced 
in the form of hallucinations; and, on the other hand, if one of the sensory areas 
is destroyed by disease or a wound, the corresponding sensations are never 
experienced again though the sense-organ and the sensory nerves remain intact, 
and their disappearance from the consciousness of the individual is so complete 
that he is not even aware of the nature of his loss, it is with him as though he had 
never experienced this kind of sensation.' (Loc. cit. p. 55.) The converse fact that 
ideas (images) in the mind are accompanied by nervous impulses in the sensory 
areas of the brain is illustrated by Pawlow's experiments described below (p. 47). 

f Higher level arcs may perhaps occur in sensory areas as well as in association 
areas of the cortex. It will therefore be convenient to describe those cortical arcs 
the excitement of which affects consciousness as sensory cortical arcs rather than 
as sensory area arcs. See p. 66 below. J See footnote on pp. 31, 32 above. 



II. 4 EDUCATION AND NEUROLOGY 37 

of the hurt and of the quick withdrawal of my foot, but also of the 
fact that I had involuntarily stooped down and clasped the sore toe 
with both hands, thus easing the pain. In such a case the nervous 
impulse conveyed by the sensory neurones to the spinal cord is more 
intense than before. Not only is it able to overcome the resistance of 
the synapses which lie along the low-resistance path to the muscles 
that produce the usual reflex already described, but it also breaks 
down the resistance of synapses by which the afferent path from the 
sole of the foot (and from the kinaesthetic sense-organs stimulated by 
the usual reflex) is connected with efferent paths to muscles of the 
trunk, arms and hands; whereupon, as before, impulses from the 
kinaesthetic sense-organs in these moving parts not only reinforce the 
(motor) impulses that originated the movements, but also, on reaching 
the cortex, make me conscious of these further movements. The 
synapses of higher resistance to which reference has just been made 
lie for the most part in the same sensory area of the cortex, but — as 
in the case of the scratch reflex of the spinal dog — some may lie in 
the segments of the cord from which issue the motor neurones to the 
muscles that bend the back and bring up the hands to grasp the 
injured foot. The conception of series of neurones congenitally linked 
together by synapses of various degrees of resistance, so as to form 
'functional systems of nervous arcs,' is of great importance in our 
subject. 

Once more suppose that, instead of merely causing me a moment's 
pain and giving rise to a series of involuntary if quite conscious move- 
ments, the injury to my foot is sufficiently serious to require treat- 
ment. This time I do not let go of my foot, put it to the ground, and 
resume my walk and conversation almost without interruption. The 
wound now receives my full attention. I turn the foot over with the 
help of my hands so as the better to see what harm has been done, 
I examine it carefully, and perhaps I tie it up so as to keep the wound 
clean until I reach home. My action is no longer brought about as 
a mere sensation-reflex, such that the impulses do not traverse any 
region of the cortex beyond that to which they were brought and from 
which they returned. On the contrary, the nervous impulses arriving 
from the sense-organs of the surface and from those of the kinaesthetic 
sense are this time strong enough to overcome the resistance of the 
synapses in certain higher level arcs. They therefore spread to other 
sensory areas of the cortex. Thus they will probably spread to the 
visual area; and, just as I previously experienced tactile and kin- 
aesthetic sensations when the nervous impulses traversed arcs in the 



38 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 4 

corresponding sensory areas, so now, as the impulse begins to traverse 
a certain system of arcs in the visual area, I experience a ' visual image ' 
of my foot — or, as is commonly said, I see my foot in imagination. 
This visual image of my foot differs from a visual sensation psycho- 
logically in that it appears less vivid, less intense; physiologically 
the difference probably is that while, in the case of the sensation, 
the nervous impulse enters the visual area of the cortex by way of 
an afferent path from the sense-organs of the retina, in the case of 
the image it is a higher level path which conveys the impulse to the 
same system of arcs m the visual area*. From the system of arcs the 
excitement of which gives rise to an image of my foot there are 
probably many paths in the visual area by which the impulse might 
proceed, producing as it did so a train of visual imagery. The con- 
ditions under which such thinking takes place we are to study shortly. 
Meanwhile we may take it that, in the case we are now considering, 
the impulse leaves the visual cortex by a certain low resistance system 
of arcs: that namely which leads the impulse to cause the focussing 
of the eyes upon the 'imagined' object — the injured part of the foot. 
As the sense-organs of the retina are now stimulated by light from the 
foot, impulses from the retina reach the visual area and the visual 
image gives place to a visual sensation of the foot and its injury. Now 
that visual sensations have been added to tactile, the injury may be 
said to be 'perceived'; for 'perception seems to involve in every case 
a synthesis of sensations and images of different senses.'! And now 
at last the process, which up to this point may have remained 
involuntary, is almost sure to be controlled by my will. The questions 
how the will's control is exercised and what is the physiological 
accompaniment of the exercise of the will are to be discussed later. 
Suffice it here to say that I concentrate my attention upon the wound, 
probably producing voluntary contraction of the eye muscles so as 
to improve the fociis, and that these contractions stimulate sensory 
nerve endings from which further impulses pass to the cortex and 
increase the excitement already there. The result is that the impulse 
can now spread through synapses of still higher resistance. It may, 
for example, sp)read to the auditory area and, as it traverses that area, 
awaken auditory images of lectures on first aid or of advice given to 
me on some previous occasion, ff that advice was to tie up such a 
wound until it could be properly cleansed, the memory of the advice 

* Cf. McDougall, loc. cit. p. 85. 

■)• McDougall, loc. cit. p. 94. It should be added, however, that McDougall's 
use of the word 'perception' is not universally followed. 



II. 4 EDUCATION AND NEUROLOGY 



39 



remains in the form of a system of nervous arcs of perrnanently — at 
least so lon/:^ as the memory survives — lowered resistance. Along such 
a path the impulse passes to the Rolandic area and is there discharged 
through the pyramidal tract as I begin the train of movements which 
comprise the tying up of the wound. 

All these sensations and images, which we have described in a very 
much simplified form, are not in the focus of consciousness at the same 
moment. They follow one another in an orderly sequence. And, as 
will shortly appear, there is reason to suppose that the nervous impulse 
meanwhile traverses one after the other, in the sensory areas of the 
brain, the various systems of arcs the excitements of which correspond 
respectively to the consecutive states of consciousness. 

In the above example of some functions of the nervous system, 
we have spoken of the different resistances ofifered \jy different nervous 
arcs to the passage of the impulse; and we have assumed that the 
resistance of an arc — or of a system of arcs — is mainly due to the 
synapses which it includes. ' There is,' writes T.Brailsford Robertson ♦, 
summarising the conclusions which he draws from some recent 
experiments, ' either in the central nervous system or in the peripheral 
neuro-muscular system, a resistance analogous to friction, requiring 
a definite force to overcome it and p»ermit a reaction, just as a heavy 
body, resting upon a rough inchned plane, does not begin to move 
until the inclination of the plane attains a certain value.' 

According to Dr McDougall, 'although recent researches seem to 
shew that there is protoplasmic continuity in certain cases ' of junctions 
between neighbouring neurones, 'we may confidently believe that in 
the great majority of synapses there is no simple continuity of 
substance, but a breach of continuity, or a difference in the nature 
of the nervous substance, which prevents the passage of the nervous 
impulse in the form in which it travels along the nerve-fibres, and 
renders that passage more difficult. TTiis peculiarity of the synapses 
may conveniently be expressed by saying that each synapse presents 
a certain resistance to the passage of the impulse.' f.,.' A simple kind 
of synapse is formed by the division of the end of an axon, or of one 
of its collaterals, into a number of fine twigs that surround the cell 
body of another neurone and terminate in tiny knobs lying close to, 
or perhaps in contact with, that cell body. Others are formed by the 
minute terminal branches of an axon or a collateral becoming inter- 
twined with the branches of a dendron of another neurone or, in some 

♦ Folia Neuro-hiologica, Bd. vi, Nos. 7, 8, Sc-pt.-^Jct, 1912. 
t Loc. cil. p. 28. 



40 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 4 

cases, perhaps, with similar fine terminal twigs of the axons or 
collaterals of another cell. In many cases the terminal twigs of several 
axons surround one cell body or are intertwined with the dendrons 
of a single neurone.' * We have thus laid stress upon the structure of 
synapses because of the very important part which they appear to 
play in determining the paths to be followed by nervous impulses and 
thus in governing bodily movements and even psycho-physical pro- 
cesses. For, as we have seen, the passage of a nervous impulse along 
some particular system of nervous arcs in one of the sensory areas — 
for example the visual area — of the cortex is a necessary condition 
of experiencing not only visual sensations but also any kind of visual 
images. 

It is true that most cortical synapses have not been traced by 
anatomists; and it is true that no direct results of experiment upon 
the physiology of cortical synapses are as yet available. But 'there is 
every reason to believe that intrinsically there is no essential difference 
between physiological dispositions and activities of the lower nervous 
centres {subcortical ganglia and spinal cord), which condition and 
determine unconscious behaviour, and those dispositions and activities 
of the higher centres — the cortex — which condition and determine both 
conscious and unconscious behaviour.' f Now we know, from experi- 
ments upon the synapses of the cord, that ' a feeble stimulus may be 
just strong enough to excite the sensory neurone, but the excitation 
may fail to overcome the resistance of the synapse and to spread to 
the motor neurone and muscle ' ; and that ' the impulse is delayed at 
the synapse, a certain time is required for overcoming its resistance, 
and the delay is briefer. ..the more intense is the stimulus.' J It is 

* Loc. cit. pp, 27, 28. f Morton Prince, The Unconscious, p. 230. 

I McDougall, loc. cit. p. 31, who cites the following further facts which reveal 
'the resistance presented by the synapse to the passage of the "impulse". ..(4) the 
application of a continued stimulus, such as a chemical irritant to the sensory 
neurone results in a rapid succession of impulses in the motor nerve; the energy 
continuously liberated in the sensory neurone seems to be discharged across the 
synapse intermittently, just as the electrical energy generated by the friction of 
an electrical machine is discharged intermittently from pole to pole of the machine 
causing a rapid series of sparks; {5) the transmission of the impulse in the reverse 
of the normal or habitual direction, i.e. in the direction from motor to sensory 
neurone, seems to be very difficult or impossible;... Other characters of the 
.synapses may be inferred from more general considerations; (6) the process of 
transmission of energy across the synapses is one that readily exhibits fatigue 
from which recovery is very rapid; the fatigue manifests itself as a temporary 
increase of resistance;... (7) the synapse is readily affected by changes in the 
composition of the blood, especially by the presence in it of certain drugs and of 
waste products of nervous and muscular activity which cause an increase of its 
resistance; (8) the resistance of the synapse, besides being liable to be increased 
by fatigue and changes in the composition of the blood, varies from moment to 



II. 4 EDUCATION AND NEUROLOGY 41 

clear therefore that the principal cause of the resistance offered by 
sensori-motor arcs of the spinal level is to be found in the synapse or 
synapses which such arcs include. Accordingly, it is reasonable to 
assume* that the resistance offered to the passage of the nervous 
impulse along cortical systems of arcs is also due to the synapses 
between consecutive neurones. And we know by introspection that, 
just as the more we practise the performance of any given action in 
a certain way the more we tend always to perform it in just that way, 
so the repeated passage of any given sequence of images through our 
consciousness makes the sequence tend to recur in the same order. It 
is therefore reasonable to assume further that the passage of the 
nervous impulse across any synapse, whether subcortical or cortical, 
leaves the resistance of that synapse permanently lessened in some 
degree; and that the more often the impulse crosses the synapse, the 
lower does the resistance become. This assumption is consistent with 
all the known facts and is inconsistent with none. Moreover it enables 
us to resume and predict a large number of facts. It satisfies, there- 
fore, the only conditions required of a ' scientific law ' f — which is no 
more than a hypothesis consistent with experience. We shall there- 
fore make this provisional assumption. It will enable us to 'explain' 
not only the formation of neural habits but also the association of 
ideas and even memory itself. For the physiological basis of all these 
consists in systems of nervous arcs of varying degrees of low resistance. 

moment with the state of the neurones between which it forms a junction, being 
diminished when they are excited and charged with free energy, increasing again 
when they return to rest; (9) the process of transmission of energy across the 
synapse leaves its resistance to the passage of the impulse... permanently lowered 
in some degree.' . 

* The assumption that the resistance offered to the passage of nervous im- 
pulses by nervous arcs is due to the synapses which those arcs contain is not 
essential to our argument. All that is necessary is to assume that in some way the 
passage of an impulse along a nervous arc makes it easier for the impulse to 
traverse the same arc on a subsequent occasion; and we know this assumption 
to be correct in the case of every arc on which the experiment has been tried. 
But if, following McDougall, we make the first assumption in the text — that the 
resistance is (mainly) due to the synapses — then we must also follow him in 
making the second — that the resistance of the synapses is reduced by the trans- 
mission of impulses. And all the available evidence supports both these assump 
tions. 

f See above, footnote X on p. 7. 



CHAPTER 5 

NEUROGRAMS 

§ I. Neurograms or Neural Dispositions. 
When describing reflex movements we said that systems of neurones 
congenitally linked together by synapses of low resistance would play 
an important part in our subject*. We may now add that arcs, and 
systems of arcs, whose low resistance has been brought about by the 
passage of nervous impulses, will be of hardly less importance in the 
discussion which follows. The word neurogram has been suggested by 
Dr Morton Prince f to describe brain records of life's experience. 
And we shall find it convenient to use this word, rather than the 
more usual term 'dispositions,' to denote all low-resistance paths 
whether among the neurones of the brain or among those of other 
portions of the nervous system, and to include congenital paths of 
low resistance as well as those afterwards worn by the impulses which 
accompany life's experiences J . Our reasons for avoiding, wherever 
possible, the use of the word ' disposition' in this sense are, firstly, 
its very different connotation in popular speech, and, secondly, its 
use in psychological writings to describe what is psychical, as when 
Dr McDougall§ speaks of the mind and its dispositions where we 
should prefer 1 1 to speak of the brain and its neurograms. 

Examples of neural dispositions, or neurograms, are furnished by 
the functional systems of nervous arcs one or other of which is excited^ 
whenever reflex action takes place. Thus to every simple spinal or 
sensation reflex there corresponds a neurogram the excitement of 
which accompanies the reflex act. To every habit also there corre- 
sponds a neurogram, or a 'system of neurograms,' as we may more 
conveniently say if the habit includes in its system a sequence of 

* See above, p. 37. 

t ' Just as telegram, Marconigram, and phonogram precisely characterize the 
form in which the physical phenomena which correspond to our (verbally or 
scripturally expressed) thoughts, are recorded and conserved, so neurogram pre- 
cisely characterizes my conception of the form in which a system of brain pro- 
cesses corresponding to thoughts and other mental experiences is recorded and 
conserved.' {Loc. cit. p. 131.) Neurograms are sometimes called 'engrams.' 

X Prince uses the word 'neurogram' for acquired neural dispositions only. 
But we shall find it more convenient to use the same word to describe similar 
low-resistance systems of arcs, whether congenital or acquired. ' Both instinctive 
behaviour and acquired behaviour must be conditioned by pathways, and the 
process in its inner nature must be the same in both.' (Prince, loc. cit. p. 237.) 

§ E.g. Psychology, p. 83. || See above, pp. 8, 27. 

^ I.e. conveys a nervous impulse: see above, p. 27. 



II. 5. 1 NEUROGRAMS 



43 



movements which we may want to consider separately. We must 
here be careful to distinguish the habit itself, a permanent possession 
of the individual, from the transitory movements to which the habit 
occasionally gives rise : the neurogram is permanent — or ' canalised ' * 
— and corresponds to the habit, while the passage of impulses through 
the neurogram corresponds to the habitual movement and takes place 
only when the movement f occurs. It should also be clear that the 
same neurones and systems of neurones may form part of several 
different neurograms, just as the same movement may occur in the 
performance of several different reflex or habitual actions: some of 
the movements of the act (habitual to some people !) of ' dropping a 
goal ' are the same as those of the reflex actions which follow stepping 
on a hot brick. 

The manner in which reflex actions are brought about by congenital 
neurograms of the spinal and intermediate levels has perhaps been 
sufficiently illustrated already J. Further examples of habitual move- 
ments caused by the excitement of acquired neurograms are afforded 
by swimming, skating or bicycle riding. When learning to swim or 
to skate or to ride a bicycle we pay attention to what we are doing. 
So far as we can, we exercise voluntary control over our movements. 
But when we are able to swim or skate or ride a bicycle, we perform 
the requisite movements quite involuntarily and even automatically. 
The movements proceed in an orderly manner without affecting our 
consciousness. We may not be able to describe just how we utilise 
our muscles in order to turn a corner on a bicycle : in fact, we cannot 
hope to bring back to conscious memory images of movements of 
which we were unconscious when they took place. Somewhere, how- 
ever, the record of the movements must be preserved so that they 
may be reproduced from time to time as occasion arises. And in the 
conception of a system of neurograms, created as the paths of low 
resistance were worn (under voluntary control to start with and 
afterwards by slight involuntary improvements in the movements we 
first learnt), we have a simple explanation of the facts of 'unconscious 
memory.' § 

* See below, p. 154. 

f Then only does the impulse traverse the whole neurogram including its 
motor part; but the sensory part of the neurogram may possibly be excited when 
the movement does not take place but is only imagined. 

J See above, pp. 34 to 37. 

§ The phrase is used by Dr Morton Prince who adds, 'By repeated experience 
the neurones become functionally organised in such a way as to acquire and 
conserve a functional "disposition" to reproduce the movements originally 
initiated by volition.' {Loc. cit. p. 137.) 



44 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 5. 1 

But it is not only of unconscious movements that a record is 
preserved in the form of neurograms which tend to cause the 
repetition of the nervous process involved. We have already seen 
that every state of consciousness is accompanied by the passage of 
nervous impulses in one or more sensory areas of the brain*. In fact 
'it is universally accepted that every mental process is accompanied 
by a physical process in the brain ; that, parallel with every series of 
thoughts, perceptions, or feelings, there goes a series of physical 
changes of some kind in the brain neurones. And, conversely, when- 
ever this same series of physical changes occurs the corresponding 
series of mental processes, that is, of states of consciousness, arises.' f 
And it is reasonable to suppose that, to different mental processes, 
there correspond physical processes in different systems of nervous 
arcs I . So we may take it that the brain process which corresponds 
to a particular sensation (or image) and which, we know, involves 
nervous arcs in certain sensory areas of the brain, consists in the 
transmission of an impulse by a series of cerebral neurones, which 
series corresponds to the object of that sensation (or image) and to it 
alone. 

If we describe as the ' depth '§ or 'intensity' of an acquired 
neurogram the degree in which the resistance of the nervous arcs 
composing it has been reduced during the formation of the neurogram 
in question, we may add that the intensity or depth of the neurogram, 
the excitement of which corresponds to any particular sensation (or 
image), depends both upon the number of times that the sensation 
(or image) has been repeated and upon the intensity of the excitement 
which accompanied the original sensation (or image) and each 
repetition of it. We have therefore to recognise that neurograms may 
possess every gradation of depth or intensity; that some will be so 
shallow as barely to deserve recognition as neurograms at all; and 
that the depth of a neurogram — and, still more, of a complex system 
of neurograms — may vary from part to part, as for example when 
we remember the colour of an object quite easily and clearly but have 
difficulty in recalling its shape. 

Now introspection tells us that, if two sensations or their images 
are presented to consciousness in quick succession, they are apt to 
recur in the same succession in future. The first sensation (or image) 

* Above, p. 36. t Morton Prince, loc. cit. p. 118. 

I But not necessarily, of course, a wholly different set of neurones: see above, 

P- 43- V . . 

§ Cf. W. James, who refers to 'the deepest paths' (neurograms). Loc. cit. 

Vol. II, p. 585- 



II. 5. 1 NEUROGRAMS 



45 



tends to recall the second. As it is usually expressed, they become 
'associated' in the mind. If we ask ourselves what this association 
implies in physiological terms, we notice at once that the necessary 
and sufficient condition of association must be such that, when the 
neurogram corresponding to the object of the first sensation (or image) 
is excited, the impulse shall tend to spread to the second neurogram. 
And this condition is that the two neurograms should be linked 
together by a path of low resistance, thus forming a ' system ' of two 
neurograms. 

Dr McDougall has considered the question how this linking of the 
two neurograms is brought about. He points out that the withdrawal 
of attention from the first sensation (or image) and its transfer to the 
second must mean that the stream of nervous impulses that was 
passing through the first neurogram has been diverted to the second ; 
and, after illustrating the manner in which the passage of the impulse 
through any one system of higher level paths may drain the impulse 
from every other such system, he gives reasons for supposing that 
the diversion of the impulse from the first to the second neurogram 
is effected in this way. The drainage of the impulse from the first 
neurogram to the second leaves its mark in the shape of a path of 
permanently lowered resistance connecting the one to the other*. 

We must further extend our conception of neurograms. So far we 
have considered only those neurograms the excitement of which 
accompanies reflex movements or simple sensations or images. Such 
neurograms are composed of arcs of the spinal and intermediate levels. 
We have next to consider neurograms involving arcs of the higher 
level also. 

When we think of a familiar object — any one will do; suppose it 
is ' Whitehall ' — the idea that forms the content of our consciousness 
is more than a simple sensation or image. Unless we have never seen 
or heard of Whitehall before, the visual sensation produced by reading 
the word is followed by the 'meaning' that it has for us. The idea of 
Whitehall that, at any moment, forms the content of the consciousness 
of a particular individual includes both a sensation (or image) — in 
the case before us, the name ' Whitehall ' — and the meaning it has 
for that individual. If he has the mind of a child, the meaning may 
consist of no more than visual images of the mounted sentries at the 
Horseguards and auditory images of the roar of the traffic. If he is 
a historian, the meaning may include images of Charles I and the 
original White Hall as well as more abstract conceptions of constitu- 

* See above, p. 41, and footnote. 



46 THIC AIM OF iiDUCA I ION 11.5. i 

li<)ii:il iiisloty. II Ik- is ,1 iii;iiiul;ir.| iiict oi iiiiiiiil ions, the ni;isi(;r of 
11 woi l<liousc, llic ;m)V(Iih)I oI ;i prison, :i <lii(( tor ol cdnf.'ilion, or a 
(oMipiiiiy |)ioii(ol(i , llic iiHiiniiii; of Wliil<;li;ill will |)rob;i.hIy centre 
roiMul llic Adniir.'ijly, W;ir OIIkc or Minishy of Mnnilions; the 
Mini .1 1 y of I Ic.illli ; lli< I loinc ( )llicc; I Ik; T.o.imI of I'd nc;i lion ; or flu; 
Ho.'ikI of I i.'kN- ;is llic case ni.iy he. And, if liis cx|)eiienc.e of dovcrii- 
nicnl ()lfic(!S li.'is j)ccii nnforhin.ilc, llic nicjinin;.,' rn.'iy include an 
iiilciisc ;iiidiloi y ini;i/;c of i lie words ' led hipe ' ;ind, possibly, a regret- 
ful vision ol llic (.ivil Service in llic d;iys ol llnr lirsi Henry, when if 
consislcd of no more fli;i.n two or three- p('rsons who, with ;i pack 
lioise to (iiiiy (lie oflici.'il records, acconip;inied tlie iiioimk li on his 
journeys up :iiid down the country! 

If then llic pcKcplion* jtrodiiced by icadin;^' the word Whiteiiall 
iii;iV j;iv<' use lo :ill the iniiiiv iinafjes which constitute the irKranillg 
ol the word, the iieiiio/;i;iiiis excited by the first sensation must, as 
W(- h.ivc ,( (11, be linked by paths of low n-sistance to ni-iirograms to 
which the iiiipiil se spie;i(ls ;is th(! various associatc^d irn.'ifj;es aris(! in 
consciousness!. And since the ncurof^'rains the excilenieiit of wiiicli 
corresponds lo the different visual, auditory or otlutr iin.if^es must 
include ui'iiioiies in dillcreiit sensory ;ireas of th<- cortex, the con- 
nee tin/; p.iths of low lesist.'iiHc iiinst iin bide hi/^hei level ;ir(s in th(! 
asso(i;ition ;ire;is of I Ik; br.iin. If now we choose- to icj^mkI as a single 
neuro(:^'r;un all that system of arcs that may Ix- excited wIk-ii a.n ide^a 
ol Whitehall fills llie iiiiiid, we must i(-co|_;iiise that this iieurof^'iain 
includes arcs of the lii/;hei \vvv\. So wh<-n I sp(!ak of ;ny ide^a of 
so and so I <lo not refci merely to some visual iin<'if,'(; or 'sign' which 
may .hMmc to represeiil liiiii in most of my thinking about matters 
with whi( li Ik- is coik ci iied. ( )n t he < out raiy my i(l(;a of him includes 
the- imageiy by whit h I icpreseiil lo myself what I know of his 
(^haiacler as w<-ll as my visual inia/;es of his appearance, and, perhaps, 
my aiidiloiy ima/^es of the- sound of his voice. And my iieurogram 
foi so andso includes not only all the- S(-nsory-area arcs that corre- 
spond (o each of these potential imag(-s but also (he association -area 
arcs that unite the \aiious sc-nsoryarea arcs into a single iieurogram. 
ICvery time 1 think of so aiid-so the- impulse- travc^rsing tiiis large 
ne'Uie»giaiu re-ache-s a maximum in a eliricie-nt part e)f it ; anel eonse- 
epie-nlly the- state- of my ee)iiscioUSneSS is ee)i icsi)e»nelili(;ly elirieie'iil, 

'•' See- ilbove-, |). {H. 

f el. W. jiiiiK^s: ' /'/ir sriisr of our viniiiini; is. ..a " [('(^iiiif; of U-iiele-iicy," wliose 
iinii.il ( oiiiile'rp.'ul, is iineloiihlcdly .i lol. of (liiwiiiiij.; ;ui(i (lyiiiK iiroc'.ossdS [ — the 
tr.uiMloiy iuiel (iv;i,iie?HceMit (;xci1(MiieMil e)f {-oniice-leMl iie-iiromuins- ] too faint and 
te)m|)li-x te) bo traceul.' (Loc. cil. Vol. i, p. ■^^/^.) 



n r, I NEUKOGRAMS 47 

images </)rr(:s])<)U(\nii^ to lli': most *■■/,< .\\>:(\ ujc. of tli'- tMijro/;r;i,fri b'l/if^ 
in the focus* of /ny consciousness anfi ima/^cs corrcsj^o/ifjing tf> the 
less excited i>urts of the neurograrn being more or Jess on the fringe. 
As Wilhanri James has it, ' no two " ideas " arc ever exactly the same.... 
A permanently exi'dinf^ "idea" or " Vorslelluni'/' which makes ils 
appearance before the JooUi[.^hls oj con'.ciousnes', at periodical intervals, 
is as mylholofncal an entity as the Jack oj Spades .' ^ ...' W hat is i^ol 
twice is the same object ' J or, as we m;i.y now ■.i<\<\, the same neurograrn §. 

We do well to remind || ourselves again to preserve a clear dis- 
tinction hetwec-n tlie neurograrn, a comfKi.rativeJy permanent possession 
of tlif; nervous system, ;i.nd the fl':e1in;^ idea occasioned in tli(: mind 
by the transitory excitement, of tlie, neurogram: a different ideaevf;ry 
timf;, as the neurf^gram is differently excited. ' Nothing but confusion 
can result from flie mixture of " brain-celLs" and "ideas". '^( An id'-a 
ordy exists wlien it is in tfie mind, and ye,t a suggestion of permanenf;e, 
IS conveyed by the word 'iflea' as used in poj^uKir sj;e':c}i. We f,an 
avoid this difficulty by following \)\ McJ-iou;;.!!! ;ind using instead 
the phrase 'thought activity.' liut, with this wurtntn^, we may safely 
continue to cmpUjy the phrase 'idea of an object' as an inclusive 
term to denote any of the infinitely various thought activities that 
result from different distributions of excitement in the neurogram of 
that object -or even in part of the neurogram, provifierl that tlie 
y.i.iV y, big enough to flefine** the neurograrn (anri thereforr; the 
object), A particular idea of a given object thus results from a par- 
ticular distribution of excitement in the neurogram of that object. 

Having thus extended our concej^ition lA n<:\n<)t,>i:\rn'-> so as to 
include those involving arcs of th'; higlier level, it rem;)iris for u , to 
consider neurograrns which also include arcs belonging to the vi /,';ral 
nervous system. ' A beautiful illustration ' - we quote from \)r Morton 
Princeft — '...into be found in thercsultsof the extremely irnj^ortant 
exj^erirnents, Uit [/-.ychology as well as [.ihysiology, of f'-iv/low** and 

• S^iC bc^/w, p. ftf. t /''■"• (-ii- VoJ, I, i4», 235, 23O, 

X l.'ic. cil. Vol, I, p, 231, 

i Not/; that th'; neurr/grarn f^/rrc'ipofi'l-s, 'Ahhf/tinYt \r(\^><rrU-/X\y {y^'j; ty<;low, 
p. 2o8j, t/> tfift tA/y/X wXnii.]\y iin; ritvurftf/riuti rorr's'-iporifl-; ty> fj)*; ol/j<-At ;K/t, ;«.>, 
thought of r/ri any -/lingJc fKx.aiion f/iit in all tfi'; a'-»pw.t'-» in wtiiUi th'; ttiink«;r ha!» 
cv';r thought of it wfiil'; th'; 'rx'Jt/^n/'-'nt of tfift neiirr>grajri in any \iu.riu .nhxr 
rrinTiri«;r </ it r <•/;])', u'\^ t/> ;* j/nriiuiUtr idea of tho ot;ject. So / may h\>('/,t\i ni ' tny 
ruMTf)UT'4.ru of tfiat <i\r]"/X' with a more \mtcmi meaning tftan if I were tr> »fx;ak 
of 'rny i/Jca '/f that object,' 

II Sec above, p, 43, T iiernard Hart, A/c, a7, p, /8, 

* ♦ I,e, frrovi/le^l tfiat th« part w not alJK^ in ifj» fjntin^ty a part c/f tfie neorf-^rarn 
of anoth^rr (A/yxX. ft ^'''"'^' '^*^' P ".'Z^- 

♦J f-'nychi-Hche J'-rrejJung fU^* Speicheldrtlsten, J, P. Pawi/yv/, liYV,(ihniue der 
l'hy^,i')l'ii/,ie. f'^>^, ' Af4cil, p, 1^2, 



48 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 5. i 

his co-workers in the reflex stimulation of saHva in dogs.... It should 
be explained that it was shewn that the salivary glands are selective 
in their reaction to stimuli in that they do not respond at all to some 
(pebbles, snow), but respond to others with a thin watery fluid con- 
taining mere traces of mucin or a slimy mucin-holding fluid, according 
as to whether the stimulating substance is one which the dog rejects, 
and which therefore must be washed out or diluted (sands, acids, 
bitter and caustic substances), or is an eatable substance and must 
as a food bolus be lubricated for the facilitation of its descent. Dryness 
of the food, too, largely determined the quantity of the saliva. 

'Now the experiments of the St Petersburg laboratory brought 
out another fact which is of particular interest for us and which is 
thus described by Pawlow. "In the course of our experiments it 
appeared that all the phenomena of adaptation which we saw in the 
salivary glands under physiological conditions, such, for instance, as 
the introduction of the stimulating substances into the buccal cavity, 
reappeared in exactly the same manner under the influence of psycho- 
logical conditions — that is to say, when we merely drew the animal's 
attention to the substances in question. Thus, when we pretended to 
throw pebbles into the dog's mouth, or to cast in sand, or to pour in 
something disagreeable, or, finally, when we offered it this or that 
kind of food, a secretion either immediately appeared or it did not 
appear, in accordance with the properties of the substance which we 
had previously seen to regulate the quantity and nature of the juice 
when physiologically excited to flow. If we pretended to throw in 
sand a watery saliva escaped from the mucous glands; if food, a slimy 
saliv^a. And if the food was dry — for example, dry bread — a large 
quantity of saliva flowed out even when it excited no special interest 
on the part of the dog. When, on the other hand, a moist food was 
presented— for example, flesh — much less saliva appeared than in the 
previous case however eagerly the dog may have desired the food. This 
latter effect is particularly obvious in the case of the parotid gland ".' * 

' It is obvious. ' Dr Prince comments, ' that in these experiments, 
when the experimenter pretended to throw various substances into 
the dog's mouth, the action was effective in producing the flow of 
saliva of specific qualities because, through repeated experiences, the 
pictorial images (or ideas) of the substance had become associated 
with the specific physiological salivary reaction, and this association 
had been conserved as a neurogram. Consequently the neurographic 
residue when stimulated each time by the pretended action of the 
* The Work 0/ the Digestive Glands (English translation), p. 152. 



II. 5. 1 NEUROGRAMS 49 

experimenter reproduced reflexly the specific physiological reaction 
and, so far as the process was one of registration, conservation, and 
reproduction, it was an act of psycho-physiological memory. 

' That this is the correct interpretation of the educational mechan- 
ism is made still more evident by other results that were obtained; 
for it was found that the effective psychical stimulus may be part of 
wider experiences or a complex of ideas; everything that has been 
in any way psychologically associated with an object which physio- 
logically excites the saliva reflex may also produce it ; the plate which 
customarily contains the food, the furniture upon which it stands; 
the person who brings it; even the sound of the voice and the sound 
of the steps of this person*. 

' Indeed, it was found that any sensory stimulus could be educated 
into one that would induce the flow of saliva, if the stimulus had been 
previously associated with food which normally excited the flow. 
"Any ocular stimulus, any desired sound, an}^ odor that might be 
selected, and the stimulation of any part of the skin, either by 
mechanical means or by the application of heat or cold, have in our 
hands never failed to stimulate the salivary glands, although they 
were all of them at one time supposed to be inefficient for such a 
purpose. This was accomplished by applying these stimuli simul- 
taneously with the action of the salivary glands, this action having 
been evolved by the giving of certain kinds of food or by forcing 
certain substances into the dog's mouth. "f It is obvious that reflex 
excitation thus having been accomplished by the education of the 
nerve centers to a previously indifferent stimulus the reproduction of 
the process through this stimulus is, in principle, an act of physiological 
memory J . 

' The experiences of the dogs embraced quite large systems of ideas 
and sensory stimuli which included the environment of persons and 
their actions, the furniture, plates, and other objects; and various 
ocular, auditory, and other sensory stimuli applied arbitrarily to the 
dogs. All these experiences had been welded into an associative 
system and conserved as neurograms. Consequently it was only 
necessary to stimulate again any element in the neurogram to repro- 
duce the whole process, including the specific salivary reaction.' § 

* 'Psychische Erregung der Speicheldriisen, ' J. P. Pawlow. Ergebnisse der 
Physiologie, 1904, i Abteil. p. 182. 

I Huxley Lecture, Br. Med. Journ. 6th October, 1906. 

X Dr Prince adds the following footnote : ' Pawlow overlooked in these experi- 
ments the possible, if not probable, intermediary of the emotions in producing 
the effects. The principle, however, would not be affected thereby.' 

§ Morton Prince, loc. cit. pp. 139-143. 

G. E. 4 



50 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 5. 2 

§ 2. Psychoses and Neuroses. 

These experiments, although undertaken for the purpose of 
studying the digestive processes only, thus brought to light phenomena 
which are entirely in accordance with our views of the nature and 
functions of neurograms. For, since the salivary glands are not 
subject to voluntary control, the flow of saliva could only have been 
caused by a nervous impulse reaching the appropriate gland by way 
of an efferent neurone (of the visceral system). Moreover the action 
of the gland could not be felt by the dog : it does not affect conscious- 
ness. No corresponding mental process can therefore have accompanied 
the passage of the impulse into the gland. And we cannot conceive 
that the nervous process began after the mental process had ended, 
for we know of no cause that could then have started the nervous 
process. We are therefore compelled to assume — as is, in fact, gener- 
ally agreed * — that the nervous process had begun before the mental 
process was over: in short, the mental processes in the case of these 
experiments, and presumably in every other case also, are accompanied 
by nervous processes. We have already seenf that certain sensory 
areas of the cortex are necessary to the experience of certain sensations 
and images, while certain non-discriminative aspects of sensation are 
accompanied by reactions of the optic thalami. By assuming that 
these facts, which have been demonstrated in a limited number of 
cases only, are universally true, we arrive at the conclusion that the 
various sensory regions of the brain are the seats of the nervous 
processes which Pawlow's experiments, among others, compel us to 
regard as the necessary accompaniment of all mental processes. And, 
since we know of no nervous process other than the conduction of a 
nervous impulse along a series of neurones and across the synapses 
that join them, we cannot but suppose that a nervous impulse traverses 
the neurones of one or more sensory regions of the brain whenever 
any mental process occurs. In so doing the impulse must leave its 
record in the lowered resistance J of the path it has followed. And 
this path of lowered resistance is the neurogram — a real physical 
thing. 

In the case of the experiments which shewed, inter alia, that the 

flow of saliva could be produced by the sound of the steps of the person 

who habitually brought the food, the nervous impulse, originated by 

the auditory sense organs and traversing first the neurogram acquired 

by frequently hearing this person's steps, next traversed the neurogram 

* See above, p. 44 and note to p. 31. f See above, p. 36. 
X See above, p. 41. 



II. 5. 2 NEUROGRAMS 51 

(or part of it) corresponding to the person and next that corresponding 
to the food ; for if the whole process took place below the level of the 
dog's consciousness no other explanation is readily available; and if, 
on the other hand, after hearing the sound of the steps, the dog had 
some idea of the person and then some idea of the food, the explana- 
tion by neurograms still fits the facts most simply. Indeed, in this 
second case, the impulse must have passed from one neurogram to 
the other by way of the low resistance path which we have already 
seen reason to postulate as the physiological correlative of an associa- 
tion between ideas; or else we must suppose that the passage of the 
impulse in the first neurogram ceased as the idea of the steps gave 
way to the idea of the person whose steps they were, and that the 
impulse in the second and third neurograms was in each case the 
consequence of psycho-physical interaction. This alternative suppo- 
sition must be rejected on three separate grounds: (i) it offers no 
explanation of what happens to the impulse that has been passing 
in the first neurogram and does not go on to the second, for there is 
no movement or other evidence of the escape of the impulse by 
efferent channels ; (2) it assumes a clear division between consecutive 
thought-activities which is entirely inconsistent with Wilham James' 
notion — now generally accepted — of a continuous stream of thought * ; 
and (3) it involves the unnecessarily clumsy expedient of assuming 
psycho-physical interaction in cases where a much simpler explanation 
is available. 

Pawlow's experiments therefore afford confirmatory evidence of 
the existence of neurograms as real physical things; and of real 
physical links between the neurograms of objects, ideas of which are 
associated. 

§ 3. Instincts and Emotions. 

These experiments also furnish us with excellent examples of 
neurograms which include visceral, as well as cerebral and spinal, 
arcs. By far the most important of such neurograms — in many ways 
the most important of all our neurograms — are those which correspond 
to our instincts and emotions. 

In his work on Social Psychology f Dr McDougall has endeavoured 
to shew that every emotion is either one of a small group of primary 
emotions — fear, disgust, wonder, anger, positive and negative self- 
feeling, tender emotion, and distress J — or is compounded of some two 

* Loc. cit. Vol. I, p. 274. t Chapter iii, pp. 45 et seq. 

% 'Distress' was added later to the original seven, Proc. Aristotelian Society 
{1915), 'Symposium on Instinct and Emotion,' p. 28. 

4—2 



52 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 5. 3 

or more of them*. Dr Morton Prince f tells us that this view is now 
generally accepted. Each of the primary emotions is, according to 
Dr McDougall, intimately linked with one and only one primary 
instinct in the manner about to be described. For example, the 
emotion of fear is linked to the instinct of flight J, the emotion of 
anger to the instinct of pugnacity, and the emotion of wonder to the 
instinct of curiosity. 

Dr McDougall defines a primary instinct as 'an inherited or 
innate § psycho-physical disposition [neurogram||] which determines 
its possessor to perceive, and to pay attention to, objects of a certain 
class, to experience an emotional excitement of a particular quality 
upon perceiving such an object, and to act in regard to it in a particular 
manner, or, at least, to experience an impulse to such action.'^ 

According to this definition, every instinctive process has the three 
aspects of all mental process: the cognitive or knowing, the affective 
or feeling, and the conative or strivingto act**. The innate neurogram, 
which corresponds to an instinct, may also be regarded as consisting 
of three parts, an afferent, a central, and a motor or efferent part. 
By suitably subdividing the innate neurogram, we may take the 
activities of its first or afferent part as corresponding to the cognitive 
part of the instinctive process; and we might also take the activities 
of the second (or central) and third (or efferent) parts of the neurogram 
as corresponding respectively to the affective and conative features 
of the total instinctive process. This is the description originally given 
byDr McDougallf f . But, as Dr McDougall has since recognised, ' each 

* Dr McDougall has kindly pointed out to me that this statement now re- 
quires modification in the light of the new chapter on 'derived emotions' in the 
14th edition of his Social Psychology. 

+ Loc. cit. p. 446. 

X Mr A. F. Shand in his Foundations of Character (1914) argued that the 
emotion of fear includes several different 'instincts' in its system. Dr McDougall 
has met Mr Shand's argument by explaining ('Symposium ' quoted in the last note, 
p. 5 1 ) that the primary instinct of which the primary emotion of fear is the affective 
aspect is not simply an instinct of flight but 'a chain instinct of two links': 'it... 
impels the animal or man to seek cover and there lie hid.' 

§ 'The statement that [neurograms] are congenitally organised does not 
necessarily imply that they are present fully developed at birth, but rather that 
they have an inherited tendency to develop along certain lines.' (McDougall, 
Physiological Psychology, p. io6.) 

II The neurogram is not, of course, psycho-physical ; but its excitement may 
produce psychical processes. 

^ Social Psychology , p. 29. 

** Cf. McDougall, Social Psychology, p. 32; and Psychology, p. 61. 

ff 'The innate psycho-physical disposition, which is an instinct, may be 
regarded as consisting of three corresponding parts, an afferent, a central, and a 
motor or efferent part, whose activities are the cognitive, the affective, and the 
conative features respectively of the total instinctive process.' Social Psychology 
(3rd edition, 1910), p. 32. 



II. 5. 3 



NEUROGRAMS 



53 




emotional disposition is so intimately bound up with some conative 
disposition that we may, for most purposes, regard the innate 
emotional-conative disposition as a structural and functional unit.'* 
We shall accordingly describe the central part of an instinct-neuro- 
gram as corresponding not only to the emotional part of the instinctive 
process but also to so much of the conative part as constitutes the 
tendency to act in such a manner as shall bring about the end towards 
which the instinct strives. The actual movement made — a much more 
variable process than the tendency] which leads to it — will then 
correspond to the excitement of the third (efferent or motor) part of 
the instinct-neurogram. 

Such a neurogram is represented schematically in the following 
diagram. In this diagram A represents the afferent neurones and the 
cerebral arcs the excite- 
ment of which is affected 
by the native object of the 
instinct and corresponds 
to cognition. The central 
part (C) of the instinct- 
neurogram is excited by 
impulses spreading from A 
and in turn excites, or 
adds to the excitement of, E ; it includes % not only arcs in the brain 
itself, but also arcs which lead from the brain to the viscera and 
arcs which lead from the viscera back to the thalami, and, finally, 
arcs which connect the thalami with the cortex of the cerebrum §; 

* 'S5nnposium on Instinct and Emotion,' Proc. Aristotelian Society (1915), 
P-3- 

t For example, the tendency to escape under the influence of fear maj^ lead 
either to (multifarious) movements of seeking cover or to the inhibition of all 
movement when cover has been found. Or the tendency to 'down' the man who 
angers me, may lead me to injure him with my boot or my tongue, instead of 
with my uplifted arm. 

I 'The constitution of this part determines in the main the distribution of 
the nervous impulses, especially of the impulses that descend to modify the working 
of the visceral organs, the heart, lungs, blood vessels, glands, and so forth, in the 
manner required for the most effective execution of the instinctive action' 
(McDougall, Social Psychology, p. 33). In a footnote Dr McDougall adds: 'It is 
probable that these central affective parts... have their seat in the basal ganglia 
of the brain.' This probability has been greatly increased, if not transformed into 
a certainty, by Dr Head's work on the optic thalamus. See above, footnote to 
P- 31- 

§ In addition to the 'circular nervous process' (cf. McDougall, Physiological 
Psychology, p. 116) represented by C, there is another circular nervous process 
(not shewn in the diagram) beginning with E and adding to the central excitement 
by bringing nervous impulses from the kinaesthetic sense-organs excited by the 
movements of the muscles stimulated through E. 



Fig, 2. 



54 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 5. 3 

and we recognise its excitement as an ' affect ' * or emotion f and as 
a conative tendency. Lastly, E represents the efferent or motor 
arcs along which the excitement is finally discharged to the muscles 
of the skeletal system, there producing the characteristic instinctive 
movements J. According to our diagram, the excitement of the 
efferent arcs {E) reaches them in part from the afferent arcs {A) 
directly, as well as (in much greater quantity) from the central (C) 
portion of the neurogram. In this respect the scheme represented 
in the diagram differs from that quoted above from Dr McDougall 
according to whom 'the excitement of the efferent or motor part 
reaches it by way of the central part.'§ We have departed from 
Dr McDougall's description in this particular because introspection 
tells us that, when three states of consciousness have followed each 
other in the same order on several occasions, the third state tends to 
become directly, as well as indirectly, associated with the first. And, 
as we have seen, this is equivalent to saying that the third neurogram 
acquires a direct connexion with the first. It follows that, as the 
A, C and E neurograms are frequently excited together and in im- 
mediate succession, the £^ neurogram must acquire a direct connexion 
with A. Moreover, as William James has pointed out ||, it may be 
that when we meet a bear we begin to run before we are frightened; 
and most people will agree that, on suddenly becoming conscious of 
danger — for example, that one is about to step over a precipice — the 
movement of recoil takes place before the emotion of fear begins to 

* In his work on Social Psychology Dr McDougall uses the word 'affective' as 
the equivalent of 'emotional,' and we shall follow him in this use of the adjective 
'affective' and the substantive 'affect.' In the later paper (1915) published by 
the Aristotelian Society (see footnote * on p. 53 above) Dr McDougall proposed 
to use the word affect to cover ' both the affective aspect and the conative aspect 
of conscious process.' But when we require an adjective to denote both aspects 
we shall use the compound form 'affective-conative.' Thus, for example, we shall 
describe the central part (C) of the neurogram of an instinct as 'affective-conative.' 

f According to McDougall our emotions are feelings or 'affects' mainly due 
to visceral disturbances. He writes for example 'Since the group of visceral 
adjustments accompanying each kind of instinctive action is peculiar to that 
kind, and since these adjustments cannot be voluntarily controlled or prevented, 
whereas the bodily instinctive movements can be, and often are, controlled and 
modified by the will, we rightly regard the effects of these adjustments as the most 
reliable symptoms of the emotions.' (Physiological Psychology, pp. 109, no.) 

X If, ignoring the fact that an instinct, as congenitally organised and before 
it has been modified by experience, does determine its possessor to act in a par- 
ticular manner and not merely to experience an impulse to such action, we were 
to adopt the second alternative at the end of Dr McDougall's definition of an 
instinct (quoted above on p. 52), the instinct so defined would be completely 
represented by the first two parts (A and C) only of the neurogram M'e have 
described. 

§ Social Psychology, p. 33. 

II Principles of Psychology, Vol. 11, p. 450. 



II. 5. 3 NEUROGRAMS 55 

be felt. We may add that, according to our diagram, the emotion is 
felt when the final vertical portion of the C neurogram is excited: and 
that is after the visceral changes, which give rise to the impulses 
arriving by 8, took place. This agrees with William James' theory of 
the emotions, according to which the bodily changes take place before 
the emotion is felt, so that 'we feel sorry because we cry,' instead of 
crying because we feel sorry as is commonly supposed. 

The important function fulfilled by the emotional element in an 
instinctive process is thus illustrated by Dr McDougall : 

Let us consider the visceral adjustments that result from the excitement 
of one of the primary instincts, namely the instinct of flight. For effective 
flight the muscles of the limbs need to receive the greatest possible supply 
of well-aerated blood; and this can only be secured by an increased force 
and frequency of the heartbeat, by increased frequency of the respiratory 
movements of the chest-walls and diaphragm, and by contractions of the 
small arteries of all the organs that do not immediately aid in flight, 
driving the blood from all these organs to the muscles of the limbs, especially 
from the skin and various glands which in their normal state contain 
large quantities of blood. Hence we find that the excitement of the instinct 
of flight gives rise to violent action of the heart, to hurried breathing, to 
pallor and coldness of the skin, to dryness of the mouth and throat, and to 
those other disturbances of the digestive functions which result from the 
checking of the blood-supply to the salivary glands and other organs of 
digestion * . 

Dr McDougall goes on to explain that, in addition to assisting in 
some such manner to further the end— escape, in the case described 
above — towards which the particular instinct strives, the emotional 
element in every instinctive process serves the purpose of the instinct 
by very largely increasing the amount of ' free nervous energy ' that 
tends to escape along the efferent channels and so to produce the 
characteristic movement. The source of this 'free energy' consists in 
the impulses reaching the brain by afferent paths from the viscera 
and from the skeletal muscles. These are the impulses which are felt 
as the emotion. If the emotional excitement is excessive — if the 
impulses from the viscera are too intense — they may be able to over- 
come the resistance of synapses in all parts of the skeletal nervous 
system and produce general convulsions. But, so long as the excite- 
ment is not excessive, 'it renders instinctive action more effective, 
because it determines the outflow of a greater volume of nervous 
energy to the muscles. Hence under the strong excitement of an 
instinct, or, as we more commonly say, under the influence of strong 
emotion, our muscular system may execute more forcible contractions 
* Physiological Psychology, p. no. 



56 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 5. 3 

than any we can voluntarily produce in the absence of such excite- 
ment.'* 

Some writers — notably Mr A. F. Shand in The Foundations of 
Character — have refused to accept Dr McDougall's view that every 
primary emotion is an essential part of some primary instinct. It is 
true that the word instinct, as commonly used by biologists, denotes 
an innate tendency to perceive and pay attention to certain objects 
and to act in regard to them in a certain way. Thus the behaviour of 
a newly hatched chick, which pays attention to grains of corn (among 
all the many objects on the ground before it) and pecks at them, would 
generally be described as instinctive, although the chick exhibits only 
a cognitive (perceiving the corn) and a conative (pecking, or trying 
to peck, at it) process, without giving any evidence of a central 
emotional process. By accepting Dr McDougall's definition of an 
instinct we compel ourselves either to describe the chick's behaviour 
by some other word than instinctive or, as we prefer, to continue to 
describe innate cognitive-conative neurograms as instinct-neurograms 
until we know that they do not include a central affective portion 
which, on being excited, corresponds to an emotion. A justification 
for leaving the onus of proof to the opponents of the theory is to be 
found in the fact that, while we cannot know whether emotions do or 
do not take place in the lower animals or insects, we can, in many 
instances of instinctive behaviour on the part of the animals most 
nearly allied to ourselves, ' recognise the symptoms of some particular 
kind of emotion such as fear, anger, or tender feeling; and the same 
symptoms always accompany any kind of instinctive behaviour, as 
when the cat assumes the defensive attitude, the dog resents the in- 
trusion of a strange dog, or the hen tenderly gathers her brood beneath 
her wings.' f 

In spite of the limitation which Dr McDougall's theory, expressed 
in his definition of instinct j, imposes on the use of this word, the 
theory is coming to be generally adopted because of the simple and 
consistent account which it gives (or helps to give) of many phenomena 
both of normal and of abnormal psychology. Thus Professor Stout, 
in the new edition of his Manual of Psychology, has followed Dr 
McDougall's lead. And Dr Morton Prince considers that ' this formula- 
tion, by McDougall, of emotion as one factor in an instinctive process 
must be regarded as one of the most important contributions to our 
knowledge of the mechanism of emotion. It can scarcely be traversed, 

* Physiological Psychology, p. iii. 

f Social Psychology, p. 28. | See above, p. 52. 



II. 5. 3 NEUROGRAMS 57 

as it is little more than a descriptive statement of observed facts... 
Its value lies in replacing vagueness with a precise conception of one 
of the most important of psychological phenomena, and enables us 
to clearly understand the part played by emotion in mental processes.' * 
We have so far spoken of the A , C, and E portions of the neurogram 
represented in our diagram f as not only innate but also innately 
connected with one another; and in animal life, no doubt, instincts 
are but little modified by life's experiences. But with men it is 
different. We have already seen how neurograms that are excited 
together tend to become permanently connected J, and how neuro- 
grams that are linked with the same neurogram also tend to become 
linked with one another. So both the afferent (^4) and the efferent 
(E) part of the neurogram which represents an instinct may be greatly 
modified by experience, as may also their connexions with one another 
and with the central (C) part of the neurogram; but this central part, 
having its excitement less under voluntary control, changes only 
slightly if at all§. In other words, we may learn to respond to an 
object with emotions and conations other than those innately con- 
nected with objects of that class: as for instance (to quote an illustra- 
tion given by Dr McDougall||) when a child, in whom the perception 
of a dog or cat or other small animal has always excited tender 
emotion, is once bitten and frightened by a dog and always afterwards 
has the emotion of fear excited by the very percepts (dogs) which 
previously excited tender emotion^. And we may learn to give the 
same emotional and conative responses to new kinds of objects as 
well as to those whose neurograms are innately connected with the 
affective-conative ** neurograms in question: for example, a woman 
in whom tender emotion is congenitally excited by the sight of small 
children, may learn to respond with the same emotion to small 
objects of any other kind — lap-dogs, say, or china knick-knacks ff. 
Finally we may learn to respond to the same cognitive and emotional 
experiences, if not with a different conative tendency, at least with a 
movement that has been modified by experience : as when a pugnacious 

* Loc. cit. p. 448. f Above, p. 53. % See above, p. 54. 

§ Dr McDougall suggests that this persistence of human emotions, and the 
comparative variabiUty of human instincts, are the reasons why previous writers 
have not recognised the intimate connexion, which he first pointed out, between 
instincts and emotions. {Physiological Psychology, pp. 108, 109.) 

11 'Symposium on Instinct and Emotion,' Proc. Aristotelian Society, p. 30. 

1j In this case A (see diagram on p. 53) is given and C is replaced by C 

** As explained in footnote * on p. 54 above, this word may be conveniently 
used to describe the C portion of the neurogram represented in the diagram on 
P- 53- 

ft In this case C is given and A is replaced hy A'. 



58 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 5. 3 

man, who has been insulted and made angry, sends his hand flying 
to his sword-hilt or to his hip-pocket instead of raising it to strike*. 

§ 4. Sentiments. 

When an affective-conative neurogram (C) is not innately con- 
nected with a cognitive neurogram {A') but has become so connected 
by experience, we do not speak of the whole neurogram {A' — C — E) 
as the neurogram of an instinct but of a sentiment^. Thus, to take 
Dr McDougall's illustration just quoted J, the child whose innate 
tendency was to love dogs but who, as the result of a terrifying 
experience, has come to fear them is not properly spoken of as 
possessing an instinctive fear of dogs, but rather as having acquired 
a sentiment of fear for dogs (or for a particular dog, as the case may 
be). The essential difference between an instinct and a sentiment, 
therefore, is that in the former the connexion between the cognitive 
{A) and the affective-conative (C) neurograms is innate, while in the 
latter this connexion is acquired §. 

But a sentiment also differs from an instinct in that the neurogram 
of a sentiment may include several different affective-conative 
neurograms all connected with the same cognitive neurogram. 
Indeed Mr A. F. Shand first applied the word 'sentiment' to an 
organised system of emotional tendencies centred about some object 
or class of objects j]. We must therefore conceive the neurograms of 
the more complex sentiments as consisting of a number of affective- 
conative neurograms connected^ with the single cognitive neurogram 
which corresponds to the object of the sentiment. Such a complex 
sentiment-neurogram may have no fixed efferent part. The effect of 
connecting a cognitive neurogram with one or more affective-conative 
neurograms so as to form a sentiment is that, whenever the cognitive 
neurogram is excited, the excitement tends to spread to the affective- 
conative neurograms; and, if the excitement does so spread, the 
resulting visceral changes send back to the brain a multitude of 
impulses which greatly augment the outflow of nervous energy. This 
outflow may take place almost immediately, giving rise at once to 

* In this case E alone is altered. The illustration is given by McDougall, 
Social Psychology, p. 41. 

f The cognitive neurogram {A') we may refer to as the cognitive part or 
element of the sentiment-neurogram: the object to which A' corresponds (see 
footnote § on p. 47 above) is spoken of as the object of the sentiment. 

X From ' Symposium on Instinct and Emotion,' Proc. Aristotelian Society, p. 30. 

§ McDougall, 'Symposium on Instinct and Emotion,' Proc. Aristotelian 
Society, p. 30. |l Cf. McDougall, Social Psychology, p. 122. 

Tl In Mr Shand's view the connexions are largely, if not wholly, innate. In 
Dr McDougall's view the connexions are mostly, if not wholly, acquired. 



II. 5. 4 NEUROGRAMS 59 

movements which are all the more powerful because of the large 
amount of nervous energy available; or the impulses may first pass 
through further cortical paths, giving rise to a train of thought which is 
the more intense because of the intensity of the corresponding nervous 
processes. Moreover, although the direction of this outflow is under the 
control of the will, it is (as we shall see) in practice largely deter- 
mined by the conative elements in the sentiment that has been excited. 

The power of any idea to direct thought and action thus largely 
depends on the extent to which the corresponding cognitive neurogram 
is linked to affective-conative (emotion-instinct*) neurograms. Dr 
Prince tells us that ' The impulsive force of the emotional dispositions 
or linked instincts becomes the conative force of the idea, and it is 
this factor which carries the idea to fruition.' And he adds: 'This is 
one of the most important principles of functional psychology. Its 
value can scarcely be exaggerated. Without the impulse of a linked 
emotion ideas would be lifeless, dead, inert, incapable of determining 
conduct.'! So Dr McDougall says 'that directly or indirectly the 
instincts are the prime movers of all human activity ' J ; while Dr 
Bernard Hart speaks of ' the great primary instincts which constitute 
the principal driving forces of the mind.'§ 

We shall have occasion later to emphasise the pedagogic conse- 
quences || of this 'most important principle.' But we may note here 
that, just as the cerebral excitement which accompanies and corre- 
sponds to an idea in the focus of consciousness is vastly increased 
when the neurogram of the object of that idea is linked to a primary 
instinct, so also the cerebral excitement may be increased — although 
to a much less extent — if the thought-activity in question is giving 
rise to bodily (skeletal) movements of any kind. For the same 
diagram (Fig. 2, page 53) will still represent the path of the impulse, 
A now representing the neurogram whose excitement accompanies the 
thought-activity, E (and now ^ also) the efferent paths to the muscles, 
while 8 now represents the path by which the impulses return to the 
cerebrum from the kinaesthetic sense-organs stimulated by the mov^e- 
ment in progress^. The value of the maxim 'learn by doing' lies in 

* Cf. Morton Prince, loc. cit. p. 447. f Loc. cit. pp. 449, 450. 

% Social Psychology , p. 44. 

§ Loc. cit. p. 165. Cf. also Lord Haldane (quoted on page 328 below): 
'Without passion nothing great is, or ever has been, accomplished.' 

II For example, as Professor Gilbert Murray told the teachers' conference in 
the University of London on 3rd January, 191 7, 'The teacher who aims at love 
but not knowledge is a washy educator. But the teacher who aims at knowledge 
without love is no educator at all.' See also below, p. 345. 

^ So C does not now include visceral arcs. 



6o THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 5. 4 

the fact that the excitement of a cognitive neurogram, which is thus 
Hnked from the outset with the neurogram of a circular nervous 
process whereby impulses from kinaesthetic sense-organs are brought 
back to reinforce the excitement of cortical neurones, tends to recur 
more frequently and to be more intense when it does recur*. Just 
as, in Dr Morton Prince's words, ' the linking of a strong affect tends 
to safeguard registration and conservation of experience,' so also 
experiences are more strongly registered and conserved by being 
linked to voluntary movements. 

The formation of a sentiment by linking affective-conative neuro- 
grams to a cognitive neurogram not only increases the available 
energy whenever the latter neurogram is fortuitously excited — when- 
ever the object of the sentiment chances to come to mind — but it also 
causes the cognitive neurogram to be excited much more frequently, 
so that the object of the sentiment is often thought of. The explana- 
tion will be considered later f. Meanwhile we may note the fact, and 
observe that it renders still more profound the effect on life and 
conduct which the primary instincts produce through the sentiments 
of which they form part. 

The formation of a sentiment and its consequences are thus 
illustrated by Dr McDougall: 

I become aware that the man standing beside me has struck me; this 
cognition evokes in me angry feeling and an irresistible impulse to return 
the blow. , .my angry impulse may be checked by one of fear, which prompts 
me to retreat... as soon as I am out of danger, I may think again of the 
incident; I live through it again in imagination, as we say. This restores 
the angry impulse; which, finding no satisfaction, in turn keeps me thinking 
of my adversary: the insult rankles in my bosom.... Quite involuntarily 
I find myself plotting out schemes of revenge.... Up to the time of the 
incident, I had been, we may suppose, as nearly as possible indifferent to 
my assailant; that is to say, his presence had evoked in me no well-defined 
feeling or attitude. But after the painful incident, I cannot think of him 
without fear, or anger, or both, and without desiring both to avoid him 
and to get the better of him in some way. Suppose, now, that circumstances 
repeatedly bring us together, and that his behaviour on such occasions is 
that of a bully covertly reminding me of the past insult that I dare not 
avenge. My attitude of blended anger and fear is renewed on each such 
occasion, and, being thus confirmed and rendered permanent, it becomes 
a full blown sentiment of hatred [in which the cognitive neurogram corre- 
sponds to my assailant and the two affective-conative neurograms, with 
which the cognitive neurogram is linked, correspond to the instincts of 
which anger and fear are the 'affects '].... The effect of such linkage is not 

* But/oy the time being — see p. 280 below — the doing finishes the learning. 
t See below, pp. 89, 91. 



II. 5. 4 NEUROGRAMS 6i 

only that, whenever the object of the sentiment is forced upon my attention, 
my thinking of him is coloured or suffused with these emotions, but also 
that I am rendered pecuharly apt to think of him. If I pass by a crowd 
of which he is a member, my eye singles him out and watches him furtively ; 
if we both have occasion to attend the same board-meeting, I am acutely 
aware of him and of all he says and does, though I may avoid glancing at 
him ; if I hear his name mentioned by others in conversation, I am all agog 
to hear what is said. And this may continue in spite of my best efforts 
to cast out this demon of hatred and to resume my former attitude of 
indifference. Again, all my thinking of my adversary is biassed by my 
attitude ; whatever I hear to his discredit I accept and retain, and I attribute 
his actions to the meanest motives ; until, by repetition of this process of 
selective thinking under the guidance of the specialised conative tendency, 
I come to think of him as a monster of iniquity*. 

The following is another simple example of the effect of a senti- 
ment: 

A man walking with a friend in the neighbourhood of a country village, 
suddenly expressed extreme irritation concerning the church bells, which 
happened to be pealing at the moment. He maintained that their tone was 
intrinsically unpleasant, their harmony ugly, and the total effect altogether 
disagreeable. The friend was astonished, for the bells in question were 
famous for their singular beauty. He endeavoured, therefore, to elucidate 
the real cause underlying his companion's attitude. Skilful questioning 
elicited the further remark that not only were the bells unpleasant but that 
the clergyman of the church wrote extremely bad poetry. The causal 
[sentiment] was then apparent, for the man whose ears had been offended 
by the bells also wrote poetry, and in a recent criticism his work had been 
compared very unfavourably with that of the clergyman. The [sentiment] 
thus engendered had expressed itself indirectly by an unjustifiable denuncia- 
tion of the innocent church bells. The direct expression would, of course, 
have been abuse of the clergyman himself or of his works |. 

In the last quotation, Dr Hart wrote 'complex' where we have 
substituted the word 'sentiment.' But, as Dr McDougall has pointed 
out I, the morbid complex, which now figures so largely in psycho- 
pathology, is essentially of the nature of a sentiment. Indeed, as 
defined by Dr Hart§, the neurogram of a complex consists of a 
sentiment-neurogram with a cognitive part to which several other 
cognitive neurograms have become connected. It follows that every 

* Psychology, pp. 105-116. 

t Quoted by Dr Hart (loc. cit. pp. 73, 74) from Dr Jung of Zurich. Dr Hart 
wrote ' complex ' and ' rivalry complex ' in the two places where we have written 
'[sentiment].' % 'Symposium,' p. 40. 

§ ' A system of connected ideas, with a strong emotional tone, and a tendency 
to produce actions of a certain definite character... is termed in technical language 
a "complex," ' loc. cit. p .61. Neither Dr Hart nor Dr Prince (loc, cit. p. 266) uses 
the word complex in its morbid sense only. 



62 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 5. 4 

sentiment tends quickly to become a complex*, in the extended sense 
in which Dr Hart and Dr Prince used the wordf . 

This tendency of a sentiment is only one example of the tendency 
of all neurograms to become linked together as, from time to time, 
the objects or feelings, to which the neurograms correspond, are 
thought of or experienced either together or in immediate succession. 
But the growth of systems of interconnected neurograms is by no 
means a wholly fortuitous process. Objects that are connected with 
each other in the ' real ' world | — a cause and its effect, for example ; 
or the different properties of the same material; or different objects 
having the same property or arousing the same emotions — tend to be 
thought about together, and so to be represented by connected neuro- 
grams. The interconnexions of many systems of cognitive neurograms 
are thus due to the relations which, as we say, actually obtain in the 
real world. Such 'subject' systems of cognitive neurograms in the 
brain, corresponding to what is commonly called knowledge in the 
mind§, will resemble each other in different individuals who have 
studied the same subject. Other systems, however, are to a great 
extent peculiar to the individual to whom they belong: for example, 
a system of neurograms which preserves the record of his personal 
experiences during a certain period; or a system formed by cognitive 
neurograms which have, at different times, chanced to become con- 
nected with the same affective-conative neurograms the excitement 
of which occurs whenever he is in a certain 'mood.' 

§ 5. Inter est- Systems. 

We shall find it convenient to have a name for any system of 
connected neurograms of which at least oneis a cognitive neurogram || ; 
and we can find no more convenient way of describing such a system 

* Whenever any one of the cognitive neurograms is excited the nervous 
impulse tends to spread — at first through the cognitive neurogram about which 
the sentiment is centred and afterwards (as we have seen) directly — to the 
affective-conative neurograms the excitement of which produces both emotional 
feeling and a tendency to action having a certain definite objective. But every 
neurogram tends to become linked with others that are often excited about the 
same time. The cognitive neurogram which is the object of a sentiment is no 
exception to this rule. Moreover, the sentiment of which it forms part tends to 
secure its frequent excitement. It follows that every cognitive neurogram about 
which a sentiment is centred tends to become linked with a rapidly increasing 
number of other cognitive neurograms. In other words, every sentiment tends 
to be quickly transformed into a complex. 

f But since the usage of the term 'complex' is not yet fixed and since Dr 
McDougall, for example, would prefer to keep the word for a pathological fact, we 
shall as far as possible avoid the term ' complex ' in the sequel. 

% See Chapter 11 below. § Cf. McDougall, Psychology, p. 83. 

•| But see footnote § on p. 163, below, where this limitation is removed. 



II. 5. 5 NEUROGRAMS 63 

than as an interest-system. This use of the word 'interest'* accords 
with common speech; for no one ever took an interest in any object 
about which he had not a goodly number of ideas; nor did any one 
ever have many ideas about (or associated with any of his thoughts 
of) an object in which he did not take an interest. A sentiment then 
is a simple kind of interest, and a ' complex ' (in the extended sense in 
which the word is used by Dr Hart f ) is another more elaborate kind 
of interest. A 'hobby' would be represented neurographically by a 
still more complicated interest-system. We note that an interest- 
system of neurograms, as we have defined the term, is a comparatively 
permanent neural feature whose excitement from time to time occasions 
mental processes. 

In the course of hfe's experience, then, an individual's neurography 
— if we may so describe all his neurograms, however distributed and 
arranged — tends to become organised into interest-systems which 
increase continually both in extent and in complexity of organisation % . 
The more perfectly his cognitive neurograms are organised, the more 
fully do they represent the objects which compose the world, and the 
relations that obtain between them : the more extensive, in fact, and 
the more accurate is his knowledge §. But in determining the effect 
of his interest-systems upon his thought and behaviour — and thus 
also upon the further growth of his interest-systems — a leading part 
is played by his affective-conative neurograms and the neurograms of 
sentiments and complexes in which they become synthesised||. The 
harmonious co-ordination of all these interest-systems, and especially 

* Cf . Herbart : ' no sooner did the words ' of the teacher's anecdote told to 
mind-wandering schoolboys 'awaken old thoughts, forming strongly-connected 
series with which the new impression easily combined, than out of new and old 
together a total interest resulted....' Psychologic als Wissenschaft, § 128. Quoted 
by William James, loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 418. 

t See above, pp. 61, 62 especially footnote § on p. 61. 

X "We have to regard the brain of the adult as consisting of a great number 
of such systems and sub-systems of neurones, organised with various degrees of 
completeness and stability and interconnected with various degrees of intimacy. 
Some of the perceptual systems [neurograms] are congenitally organised, while 
others are built up by the course of the individual's experience. The statement 
that systems are congenitally organised does not necessarily imply that they are 
present fully developed at birth, but rather that they have an inherited tendency 
to develop along certain lines. The mental life of most of the animals must be 
regarded as almost purely perceptual and determined almost completely by 
congenitally organised perceptual systems. Man, too, has such congenitally 
organised systems, but he differs from the animals in that his long education 
greatly modifies his congenital systems and develops many new systems peculiar 
to each individual.' McDougall, Physiological Psychology, pp. 105, 106. 

§ Cf. McDougall, Psychology, p. 83, where however the reference is to the 
'mind' and its 'dispositions' instead of the 'brain' and its 'neurograms.' 

II Cf. Morton Prince, loc. cit. p. 536. 



64 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 5. 5 

of those in which the affective-conative elements are strongest, is a 
first condition of effective action and consistent behaviour*. It is 
indeed an essential foundation of character. On the other hand, 
conflict between different interest-systems or complexes is one of the 
principal causes of certain kinds of insanity. 

We are about to study the spontaneous growth of interest-systems 
and then their voluntary development in the process of education. 
Meanwhile we do well to note that the neurograms of interests f, 
complexes and sentiments, permanent as they are when compared 
with the mental processes that result from their temporary excite- 
ment, are not indestructible. They tend, on the contrary, to become 
gradually disaggregated after they have served their purpose, just 
as printers' type is distributed when its work is done|. 

* See below, Chapter i6. 

•)■ The expression ' neurograms of interests ' is here used as the equivalent of 
' interest-systems.' 

J Cf. Morton Prince, loc. cit. p. 306. 



CHAPTER 6 

INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT 

§ I. The First Law: Psycho-neural Parallelism. 

The neurograms that we have just been studying are the physiological 
records of states of consciousness and the physiological condition of 
the repetition of such states. We turn now from psychostatics to 
psychodynamics, the study of the flow of consciousness. To ascertain 
the causes determining this flow is, according to Dr Bernard Hart*, 
the ultimate aim of psychology. 

Our problem is to formulate laws according to which our thinking 
proceeds; without, however, allowing ourselves to forget that a law 
of nature is no more than a hypothesis consistent with experience. 

It is of course obvious that an individual's thought-activities at 
any moment largely depend upon his environment. Unless he is very 
busily occupied, a thunderclap close by is sure to make him think 
of thunder. And, even when sense impressions from outside or from 
inside his body do not determine his thought-activity, they may still 
influence it. We shall have more to say later concerning the interrup- 
tion and modification of trains of thought by incoming sense impres- 
siofis. First, however, let us simplify our discussion by considering the 
case of thought-activities that are subject to no outside interference. 
And let us make it simpler still by speaking, for the present, only of 
involuntary thinking. 

Some of the following statements of these laws of thought have 
had to be anticipated in order that the preceding account of neuro- 
grams and systems of neurograms might not lack some indication 
of the way in which neurograms are formed and systematised. Thus, 
for example, we have already f enunciated the law of psycho-neural 
parallelism J. We now re-state it as follows: A nervous impulse tra- 
verses the neurones of one or more sensory regions of the brain when- 
ever any mental process occurs. Employing Huxley's terminology, 

* Loc. cit. pp. 60, 61. f On p. 50, above. 

X W. McDougall (Physiological Psychology, p. 167) states the law: 'some neural 
process invariably accompanies every state of consciousness.' He warns his 
readers against confusing the law of psycho-neural parallelism with the hypothesis 
of psycho-physical parallelism. 

G. E. <; 



66 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 6. i 

we may now express the law more briefly : To every psychosis there 
corresponds a neurosis*. 

This law — that whenever thinking goes on, impulses pass along 
the brain neurones in such wise that the nature of the thought-activity 
at any moment is, subject to the fourth lawf, determined by the 
neurones that are then excited and by the degree of their excitement % 
— is our first law of thought. 

The system of brain paths followed by the nervous impulse, and 
the intensity of the impulse at various parts of the system, thus 
define the thought-activity at any moment. But we do well to remind 
ourselves that the system of brain paths excited at the moment in 
question may include higher level paths the excitement of which does 
not affect consciousness. 

If therefore we describe as ' sensory brain paths ' those systems of 
arcs the excitement of which may affect consciousness, we may say 
with greater precision, that it is the system of sensory brain paths 
excited at any moment, and the varying degree of excitement in 
different parts of this system, that define the thought-activity then 
in progress. And it is reasonable to assume that the thought-activity 
which occupies the focus of consciousness, corresponds to the excite- 
ment of that part of the system of sensory brain paths that is then 
most intense §. Moreover, the progressive changes in the distribution 
of the excitement determine the flow of consciousness. 

§ 2. The Second Law: Diffusion. 

If states of consciousness were discontinuous, it would be difficult 
to account for the sudden disappearance of nervous impulses from 
sensory brain paths at the end of one state, or, apart from new sense 
impressions, for the origination of other impulses when the next state 
begins. But no such difficulty need trouble us, since introspection 
tells us that the flow of consciousness is continuous. 'The changes 

* Cf. W. James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. i, pp. i86 and 243. This use of 
the words psychosis and neurosis is not to be confused with their use in recent 
medical literature to denote pathological conditions. 

f See below, p. 129. 

J An arc or neurogram that is active, but not excited (see footnote * on p. 29) 
may affect consciousness if impulses traverse synapses from one constituent 
neurone to another, although no impulse enter or leave the neurogram or arc as 
a whole. 

§ Cf. W. James, loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 283. If, however, as is not uncommon in 
pathological cases, there be a second (sub-conscious) neurosis to which no psychosis 
corresponds, the impulse passing in the second system of nervous arcs, or in some 
part of it, may be of greater intensity than any in the first system. (See M. Prince, 
loc. cit. footnote on p. 343.) 



II. 6. 2 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT 67 

from one moment to another in the quaHty of the consciousness are 
never absolutely abrupt.' * 

When thought is guided by the will, its continuity is obvious 
enough. When thinking is involuntary, it is generally easy to trace 
the connexion between the states of consciousness at two moments 
separated by a short interval of time. Even when the stream of 
consciousness — to use William James' phrase — seems to be cut off 
short by a peal of thunder or other sense impression of sufficient 
intensity, the transition, rapid though it be, from the interrupted 
thought-activity to the new thought-activity that arises out of the 
interruption, is not to thunder pure, but to ' thunder-breaking-upon- 
silence-and-contrasting-with-it ' ; for ' into the awareness of the thunder 
itself the awareness of the previous silence creeps and continues.' f 

Let us next attempt to make a cross-section of this continuous 
stream of thought. At any moment there is some thought-activity — 
perhaps an idea of some object — which is receiving most attention, 
and is said to occupy the focus of consciousness. This thought-activity 
will ordinarily possess some meaning, more or less; and, as we saw|, 
this meaning implies the existence of several associated thought- 
activities of which we may be barely conscious, and which are said 
to occupy the fringe of consciousness. If, to recall our previous 
example, an idea of Whitehall is in the focus of consciousness, it is 
not improbable that some idea of the Civil Service in general, or of 
the particular Government Office with which the thinker has most 
to do, will find a place on the fringe, and give to the idea of Whitehall 
the meaning it then has for him. 

But the fringe of consciousness may also contain other thought- 
activities that do not owe their presence to associations with the 
thought-activity in the focus. It may, for example, include sense 
impressions: my thoughts must be very interesting if I remain 
unconscious of a sudden clap of thunder or a twinge of tooth-ache. 
Indeed, I shall ordinarily be aware of much less violent disturbances 
or discomforts. Or again, the fringe of consciousness may include 
elements belonging to some independent and, for the most part, 
unconscious stream of thought which momentarily obtrudes itself: 
as when the solution of a problem, pondered but left unsolved over- 
night, is about to flash into a mind that now seems wholly occupied 
with other matters. § 

* W. James, loc. cit. Vol. I, p. 237. 
t W. James, loc. cit. Vol. 1, p. 240. 
+ Above, pp. 45, 46. 
§ See footnote j on p. 256, below. 



68 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 6. 2 

So we may describe a typical cross-section of the stream of thought 
as shewing {a) some thought-activity in the focus of consciousness; 
(b) other thought-activities, connected with the first, and giving 
meaning to it, on the fringe; and possibly (c) other independent 
thought-activities as well. 

What now is the neural counterpart of the stream of consciousness, 
a cross-section of which we have just described? It consists, as we 
have seen, of a stream of nervous impulses advancing through sensory 
brain neurones and the synapses that connect them. As the impulses 
advance and the distribution of excitement among the brain neurones 
alters — in short, as the neurosis changes — so also does the psychosis 
change. Our immediate problem is to formulate general laws according 
to which the neurosis changes, and to describe the psychological 
consequences of our results. 

We may start with a simple neurosis and see how it develops. 
Imagine a man awakened out of dreamless sleep by knocking on his 
bedroom door. As he gradually wakes up, he is first conscious of 
knocking pure and simple. The knocking has no meaning: it is just 
knocking, that and nothing more. The corresponding neurosis, we may 
take it, affects no sensory brain paths beyond the auditory centres. 
As he becomes more and more widely awake, the waking man per- 
ceives that the knocking is on the door; that the door is the door of 
his bedroom; that he is being called; that it is time to get up; that 
he has this, that, and the other to do to-day. The neurosis extends 
at the same time, the excitement spreading from the auditory centres 
to the visual arcs, the excitement of which gives rise, first to an image 
of the door, and then to images of objects — the bedroom, we said — 
connected with the door. And, as the nervous impulses continue to 
advance along connected sensory arcs in the brain, they give rise 
to the associated thought-activities : time-to-get-up and day's-work- 
waiting. 

In some such way the simple knocking, the consciousness of which 
filled the sleeper's mind as he awoke, acquired meaning; and the 
simple neurosis in the auditory centres extended to a number of 
connected neurograms — of the door, of the bedroom, and the rest — 
the excitement of which gave rise to this growing meaning*. The 
development on the fringe of consciousness of thought-activities 
connected with the thought-activity that for the moment occupies 
the focus, is similarly accounted for by the extension of the neurosis 
to which this focal thought-activity corresponds. 
* See above, pp. 45, 46. 



II. 6. 2 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT 69 

This tendency of nervous impulses to spread from the arc in which 
they are moving to all systems of arcs connected with the first by 
synapses of sufficiently low resistance is a principle of great importance 
in our subject. The process is known as diffusion*, or, sometimes, as 
complication | . Remembering that the synapse between two neurones 
acts as an insulator, and not merely as a resistance, to feeble impulses, 
we may state the law of diffusion thus : Excitement in any nervous arc 
tends to spread to every other arc that is connected with the first through 
synapses the insulation of which the excitement in question is intense 
enough to overcome I. We shall refer to this law of diffusion as our 
second law of thought. 

An example of the operation of this law is furnished by the fact 
that the sufficient excitement of any part of a neurogram — a system 
of connected low resistance arcs — is ordinarily followed by the excite- 
ment of the whole §. Thus, in Pawlow's experiments described above ||, 
it was only necessary to stimulate again any element in the neurogram 
to reproduce the whole process, involving the excitement of the whole 
neurogram which in this case included arcs of the visceral system. 
The psychological consequence is that the awakening of any image — 
auditory, visual, olfactory, or whatever it be — of a famihar object 
tends to arouse all the other images which go to make a percept ^ of 
the object, an idea of the object as a whole. 

But, according to our statement of the law, the extent to which 
the excitement spreads depends upon the relation which the intensity 
of the excitement bears to the insulating strength of the synapses; 
and this varies between wide limits**. If the brain is fatigued, so that 
the sjoiaptic resistances are high, the diffusion is slight, and the tired 
thinker finds that his ideas are lacking in wealth of meaning: his 

* Cf. McDougall: 'The energy liberated in sensory neurones... diffuses itself.' 
{Physiological Psychology, p. 38.) Cf. also Bain: 'The organs first and prominently 

affected, in the diffused wave of nervous influence ' (Emotions and Will, pp. 4, 5, 

quoted by W. James, lac. cit. Vol. 11, p. 373.) 

f Cf. McDougall: 'The process of reinstatement of images of other senses by 
an impression made upon one sense is known to psychologists as complication, 
and the word may be usefully applied also to the underlying neural process.' 
(Physiological Psychology, p. 100.) 

X Cf . W. James : ' It is hard to doubt the truth of the law of diffusion, even 
where verification is beyond reach. A process set up anywhere in the centres 
reverberates everywhere, and in some way or other affects the organism throughout, 
making its activities either greater or less.' (Loc. cit. Vol. ii, p. 381.) 

§ Cf. W. McDougall: 'The perceptual neural system is a complex of sensori- 
motor arcs of all three levels, and comprises arcs in two or more of the sensory 
areas of the cortex, and all these arcs are so intimately connected that excitement, 
initiated in any one of them, tends always to spread throughout the system.' 
(Physiological Psychology, p. 105.) \\ On pp. 47 to 49. 

1J But see footnote f on p. 38 above. ** See above, p. 41, 



70 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 6. 2 

vocabulary is restricted, and his imagery poor*. If, on the other hand, 
the nervous system is in a state of abnormal excitability, as in some 
cases of strychnine poisoning when the synaptic resistances are 
abnormally low, 'a stimulus applied to any small group of sensory 
neurones may initiate an excitement which spreads throughout a very 
large part of the nervous system and throws almost all the muscles 
in the body into contraction ' f : a flash of light may suffice to produce 
convulsions. Or, if the excitability is normal but the excitement 
intense, the nervous impulses may be diffused more widely than 
usual, so that thoughts may become unusually rich in meaning, and 
capable of expression in uncommon language: under the influence of 
strong emotion every man may, it is said, become a poet. 

Diffusion thus accounts for the presence on the fringe of conscious- 
ness, and for the development of, thought-activities that originate 
from, and give meaning to, the thought-activity in the focus. The 
presence of other thought-activities of independent origin may be 
due to the excitement of sensory brain arcs by afferent impulses from 
the external sense organs or from the viscera. 

§ 3. The Third Law: Inhibition by Drainage. 

Our further account of the neural counterpart of a stream of 
thought may be simplified by the use of symbols. Let us denote a 
thought-activity by a letter in Gothic type (e.g. ^), and let us use 
the same letter in ordinary Italic type (e.g. A) to denote the neuro- 
gram the excitement of which corresponds to the thought-activity 
(^) in question. It is true that the distribution of excitement in the 
neurogram, A, may be different on different occasions, and that to 
each different distribution a somewhat different thought-activity ^ 
will correspond. But, so long as we concern ourselves with compara- 
tively simple neurograms, this source of error need not trouble us; 
for the simpler the neurogram, the less can the distribution of excite- 
ment in it vary. Or, in psychological terms, while I may have many 
different ideas of my friend so-and-so (corresponding to different 
distributions of excitement in the complex neurogram of my friend) 
there is little variation about my ideas of an object like the letter Z, 
of which, as I am neither a lexicographer nor a printer, my neurogram 
is simple. 

* Cf. W. James: 'This field of view of consciousness varies very much in 
extent, depending largely on the degree of mental freshness or fatigue.' {Loc. cit. 
Vol. I, p. 256.) 

] W. McDougall, Physiological Psychology, p. 33. 



II. 6. 3 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT 71 

Neurograms connected with A we may denote hy A^, A2, •.., AJ^•, 
neurograms, other than A, connected with A^hy A„i, A„2, •••', and so 
on. The thought-activities corresponding to the excitement of these 
neurograms will then be represented by gl ; ^^ , ^2» •••^n'> ^11 . ^12 > • • • . 
^ni.^n2> •••; and so on*. 

Consider now an involuntary stream of thought: the thinker is 
making no attempt to direct his thinking. We may make a cross- 
section of the stream at any point, and follow the stream as it flows 
on beyond that section. Suppose that the cross-section shews an 
elementary thought-activity ^ in the focus of consciousness; and, 
on the fringe, ^j, ^g^ ••• . ^n derived from E, as well as iS, (K, 29, ••• 
of independent origin. 

According to our second law, diffusion proceeds whenever the 
synaptic insulation is weak enough to be overcome by the excite- 
ment. Excitement may therefore diffuse from A^, A^, ..., B, C, ... as 
well as from A . To what extent, if at all, do separate streams of nervous 
impulses arise from these sources and continue to flow in separate 
neural channels? 

It is clear, in the first place, that if A is connected to no other 
neurograms A^, A^, ... by synaptic insulations sufficiently low for the 

* We do well to remind ourselves that our sub-division of the interest-system 

■^Aii 



An >Ani 



into the elementary neurograms A, A^^A^, . . . , is somewhat arbitrary. There may 

for example be low resistance paths between A-^ and ,4,, so that A(^ \ might be 

^A, 
described as a single neurogram, instead of three separate neurograms; but, if 
so, we are to suppose that the synaptic insulation between A^ and A 2 is higher 
than any within the elementary neurograms in question. Thus our sub-division 
of a complex neurogram into elements is not wholly arbitrary, like the mathe- 
matician's sub-division of a rigid body into a number of massive particles connected 
by rigid weightless rods. Corresponding to our elementary neurograms are ele- 
mentary thought-activities: for example, we conceive a complex thought-activity 
— an idea of some complex obj ect, suppose — as built up of simpler thought-activities 
(such as the object's name, its colour, its shape, and so on), and these of simpler 
thought-activities still, and so on, until we arrive at elementary thought-activities. 



72 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 6. 3 

excitement in A to overcome, no separate stream of impulses will 
start from A . What does happen to the excitement of A in such a 
case will be explained directly*. Meanwhile we may note the same 
fact in psychological terms: a thought-activity without associations 
refuses to develop and to originate a stream of thought. For example, 
the Fuegians, when visited by Darwin in H.M.S. Beagle, betrayed no 
interest whatever in the brig: they saw it in the ofhng but did not 
look at it; it suggested nothing to them; it originated no train of 
thought. They had never seen its like before, and it could have no 
associations in their minds. But when they saw the ship's boats, it 
was quite another story; for the boats suggested their own efforts 
at canoe building and fascinated them at once f . 

We next observe that, since the synaptic resistance between 
A and A^ is not likely to be the same as between A and Ag, diffusion 
from A does not take place uniformly in all directions. On the con- 
trary, it follows the various and separate paths of least resistance. 
But if these separate streams of nervous impulses continued inde- 
finitely to go their several ways, they would ultimately issue down the 
pyramidal tract |, giving rise to disconnected movements having no 
common end and serving no useful purpose. 

It is therefore clear that thought-activities on the fringe of 
consciousness, whether ^j, ^2- ••• ^ue to the thought-activity in 
the focus or ^, Qt, ••• of independent origin, do not give rise to 
divergent streams of thought that would then issue in disconnected 
acts. There can however be no doubt that the action which ends a 
sequence of connected thought-activities is not merely due to the 
thought-activity that was in the focus of consciousness a moment 
ago: it is also affected by thought-activities that were on the fringe. 
For example, I am asked a question, to which, after a little reflexion, 
I return an answer. My answer is the action that ends a sequence of 
connected thought-activities, including the logical series on which 
I have concentrated my attention and which have enabled me to 
reply to the question. This logical series has occupied the focus of 
consciousness; but it may not be alone responsible for the answer 
that I do, in fact, return. If my interlocutor seems to be heckling 

* See below, p. 79. From the 'third law' there stated, it follows that, if 
IS is the next thought-activity to occupy the focus of consciousness, the excitement 
of A is drained through B. 

t See Darwin, A Naturalist's Voyage round the World, pp. 219, 229. 

% That action is the normal ending of every series of connected thought- 
activities or, in neural terms, that all excitement of cerebral neurones tends 
ultimately to find an outlet down the pyramidal tract, is explained below, in 
Chapter 15. 



II. 6. 3 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT ^^ 

rather than seeking for information ; or if I am busy and dislike being 
interrupted by his question; or even if I am suffering from some 
physical ailment causing thought-activities — sensations — which ap- 
pear on the fringe of consciousness but have no connexion with the 
thought-activities arising out of the enquiry, then the tone, and 
perhaps the wording, of my reply may betray an annoyance that is 
due to thought-activities which never got beyond the fringe of my 
consciousness while I was thinking out an answer. In other words, 
if ^; ^1, ^2' •••» ^. CO", ... represent the state of consciousness 
immediately before the cerebral excitement is discharged down the 
pyramidal tract, this discharge includes the impulses diffused from 
A-^^, A^, ...,B, C, ... as well as that diffused directly* from A. The 
impulses diffusing from all the excited neurograms thus coalesce to 
produce a single movement or a co-ordinated series of movements. 

If the streams of impulses issuing from different excited neuro- 
grams thus coalesce at the end of such an involuntary train of thought 
as we are considering, may they not also converge and coalesce from 
time to time while the train of thought is in progress? The psychic 
counterpart of this coalescence of nervous impulses would be the 
contraction of the field of consciousness from time to time, and the 
contracted field would consist of little (if any) more than a compara- 
tively intense thought-activity in the focus of consciousness. 

Introspection suggests that an alternate contraction and expansion 
of the field of consciousness does in fact take place. Whoever will 
recall his experiences during a spell of involuntary thinking, or day- 
dreaming, will probably recognise the phenomenon. At one moment 
his field of consciousness was gradually expanding, as the thought- 
activity in the focus called up more and more associated thought- 
activities and so increased in meaning. Then one of these derived 
thought-activities, or some other activity of independent origin, seemed 
rather suddenly to grow in importance until the focus of consciousness 
was transferred to it and it filled the whole field, which thus contracted 
in preparation for the next period of gradual expansion. And it is 
not generally difficult to see something special about this particular 
thought-activity that may have caused it thus to dominate the rest. 
Probably it has some emotional association ; or it revived some non- 
emotional interest (if such there be) ; or its potency may have been 
merely due to its having been independently aroused from two or 
more separate sources. 

* I.e. otherwise than through ^1, /i 2. ■•••^n; it may be by a higher level path, 
the passage of impulses along which does not affect consciousness. 



74 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 6. 3 

This pulsation in the stream of consciousness has been described 
by WilHam James: 

As the total neurosis changes, so does the total psychosis change. But 
as the changes of neurosis are never absolutely discontinuous, so must the 
successive psychoses shade gradually into each other, although their rate 
of change may be much faster at one moment than at the next. 

This difference in the rate of change lies at the basis of a difference of 
subjective states.... When the rate is slow we are aware of the object of 
our thought in a comparatively restful and stable way.... As we take, in 
fact, a general view of the wonderful stream of our consciousness, what 
strikes us first is this different pace of its parts. Like a bird's life, it seems 
to be made of an alternation of flights and perchings....The resting- 
places are usually occupied by sensorial imaginations of some sort, whose 
peculiarity is that they can be held before the mind for an indefinite time, 
and contemplated without changing; the places of flight are filled with 
thoughts of relations, static or dynamic, that for the most part obtain 
between the matters contemplated in the periods of comparative rest*. 

From the psychological standpoint, therefore, we see reasons for 
suspecting that the stream of nervous impulses, diffusing from various 
excited neurograms, are not always divergent but, on the contrary, 
converge from time to time and even coalesce. Let us examine the 
neural phenomenon a little more closely. We start, as before, with 
a field of consciousness represented by ^ in the focus, and ^j , ^2 > • • • > 
^„, 13, ®, ... , JF (say) on the fringe f. As excitement continues to 
diffuse from A, A^, A^, ... , B, C, ... to A^+i, A^+z, ... , ^u, ^12, .••, 
A21, A22, • • . , ^1 , -62 , ..., Ci, C2, ... the field of consciousness gradually 
expands, ^„+i, ^n+2> ••• being added to the fringe. But sooner or 
later '^rst... (or one of the derivatives of ^, or a new thought, say 
<^, but we will suppose it is ^rst...) begins to increase rapidly in 
intensity and quickly dominates the whole field. The focus of con- 
sciousness is then transferred to ^rst...'> and, when this happens, the 
field changes very rapidly. Meanwhile, by our first law, the excite- 
ment J of ^„(... has begun to grow quickly at the expense of the 
excitement of all the other neurograms that have become concerned, 
until finally the excitement of the whole system is concentrated in 
Aygj _ . In other words, A^gf_ having for some reason or other — 

* Loc. cit. Vol. I, p. 243. Cf. also McDougall: 'Mental activity or thinking thus 
tends to progress in cycles; each cycle begins with knowing, which excites feeling 
and striving; the striving results in a new knowing, which satisfies the striving; 
and so the cycle reaches its natural termination in a feeling of satisfaction.' 
{Psychology, p. 62.) 

f See Fig. 5 on p. 80 below. 

J I.e. the stream of impulses traversing vi,.gj..., to be distinguished from the 
activity of Aj.)t.... See above, p. 29. 



II. 6. 3 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT 75 

how we are about to consider* — had its excitement increased beyond 
that of other excited neurograms, draws to itself the excitement of 
them all. 

Here, then, we have a case in which the intense excitement of 
one system of higher level nervous arcs causes that system to drain 
the impulses from all other active arcs of the higher level. Is this 
what generally occurs? Dr McDougall tells us that it is; and that 
the same is true of connected arcs belonging to other levels. 

William James first suggested that the interruption or ' inhibition ' 
of nervous impulses, traversing one system of arcs, by impulses dis- 
charged through another system, was a phenomenon akin to the 
' draining or siphoning of certain channels by currents flowing through 
others.' f But it is to Dr McDougall that we owe the elaboration of 
the theory of inhibition by drainage. He thus applies it to the case 
of the reciprocal innervation of antagonistic muscles, e.g. the extensors 
and flexors of the elbow : 

Let us imagine each arc in a simple schematic form as a chain of three 
neurones afferent [a^j, central {a^, efferent {a^, and let us call them a^, a^ 
and flg, and b^, K and fe,, in the two arcs respectively (Fig. 3). When a 




Fig- 3- 

strong stimulus is applied to the afferent neurone of arc a, it generates 
neurin rapidly, so that it becomes very rapidly charged, and the resistance 
of synapse a-^-a^ is lowered until a series of discharges takes place from 
«i to fla. s^iid again from aj to a^. The problem is, then, to imagine such a 
mode of connection between arc a and arc b as will cause arc a during 
stimulation to drain off from the afferent and central neurones of b the 
smaller quantities of neurin generated in them. Several forms of such a 
connection may be imagined, but I think that probably it takes the form 
of a collateral fibre coming from neurone 62. ^i^d taking part with the 
axone of a^ in forming a synapse with a^ . Whatever the exact constitution 
of this sjmapse may be, we may assume that, when its resistance is lowered 
by the stimulation of a^, and consequent charging of a.^, the collateral of 

* See below, pp. 82 to 94. f Loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 373. 



76 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION 



II. 6. 3 



62, making connection with a^, through this synapse*, becomes the path 
of least resistance for the escape of neurin from b^ and &2' These neurones 
are therefore drained by a^, while b^ ceases to receive any neurin from 63 
and the tone of the muscle group supplied by it is abolished. In a similar 
way, if both a^ and bj^ be stimulated, but one more strongly than the other, 
the more strongly stimulated arc will drain the afferent and central neurones 
of the less strongly stimulated arc, because the resistance of synapses of 
the former will be reduced to a lower level than that of the synapses of 
the latter!. 

Professor Sherrington has pointed out that Dr McDougall's scheme 
fits a number of facts of reciprocal inhibition |, and also accounts 
' very lucidly ' § for certain phenomena of alternating reflexes, which 
are common as spinal reactions. And it accords with the results of 



* There is some obscurity here; for, in the first place, the diagram does not 
indicate clearly that the greater part of the impulses crossing the synapse fli-aj 
(as well as of the impulses originating in ag in consequence of its stimulation from 
Ui) tends to proceed by the axone of a^ towards a^ rather than by the collateral 
towards 63 , so that the stimulation of a^ will result in the lowering of the resistance 
of the synapse a^-a^ rather than (or more rapidly than) of the synapse 012-63; 
and, secondly, it is not apparent that the lowering of the resistance of the synapse 
^2 -«3 must necessarily involve the lowering of the resistance of the synapse b^-a^ 
between the collateral of 63 ^.nd a^. This obscurity is removed by redrawing the 
diagram thus: 




Extensor 



Fig. 4. 

The collaterals are here shewn by finer lines to indicate that the greater part 
of any impulse leaving ag tends to proceed by the axone to a^' and so to a^ 
rather than by the collateral to 62' ^^^d on to 63. If now we suppose that the 
threshold and the resistances of the synapses between a,^-a.^ and b^'-b^ are greater 
than between a^ or b^ and either a^' or b^', and that the resistances of these last 
four synapses are approximately equal, the obscurity is removed. For if a stimulus 
is applied to a^, excitement spreads to a^' and b^' but more to a.^' than to 62' so 
that a^'a^ is the more strongly stimulated arc, and its synapse a^'-a^ is therefore 
(this is Dr McDougall's hypothesis expressed in our third law) reduced to a lower 
level than that of the synapse b^'-b^ of the less strongly stimulated arc 62' 63. 
Accordingly any excitement in foj and 62 tends to escape by way of 122' ^^^ ^s 
rather than by way of b^' and 63 . 

t Brain, Part cii (1903), p. 153. Quoted by Sherrington, loc. cit. pp. 200, 201. 

X Loc. cit. p. 201. 

§ Sherrington, loc. cit. p. 202. Professor Sherrington adds, however, that, in 
his thinking, certain difficulties still attach to Dr McDougall's view. Loc. cit. 
p. 203. 



II. 6. 3 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT ^^ 

Professor Sherrington's own experiments with strychnine and 
tetanus toxin*. 

But Dr McDougall by no means restricts the appHcationf of his 
theory to the phenomena of reciprocal inhibition. On the contrary, 
he has apphed it, as we have already indicated, to every case of a 
thought-activity that comes to occupy the focus of consciousness 
and, in so doing, drives other thought-activities out of the field of 
consciousness altogether. Since two unconnected thought-activities 
cannot both be in the focus of consciousness at the same moment, 
so that the arrival of the one involves the withdrawal of the other, 
'we must suppose,' writes Dr McDougall, 'that systems of arcs of 
the higher levels are more freely interconnected than those of the 
spinal level (where, as we have seen, this tendency to reciprocal 
inhibition obtains only between certain pairs or small groups of 
systems), so that the free discharge of any one system in the forward 
direction J drains any other higher-level system.' § After describing 
a hydro-mechanical model to illustrate how the passage of a sufficiently 
intense impulse through any one system of higher level paths may 
inhibit by drainage the passage through any other, Dr McDougall 
proceeds: 'There are many good reasons for accepting this view of 
the inhibitory process. Firstly, it is applicable to the inhibitory 
processes of the spinal level, and evidence directly supporting it is 
afforded by the study of such processes in the sensory level. Secondly, 
if we do not accept it, we have to invoke the aid of "inhibitory 
centres," and find ourselves in inextricable difiicul ties.... Thirdly, and 
this is the most important point, the hypothesis of inhibition by 
drainage offers a satisfactory solution of that crucial problem, the 
direction of the discharge from the one perceptual system [neurogram] 
a to any other ^ excited in the succeeding moment. For it is the flow 
of energy, drained from a by jS, that estabUshes a path of low resistance 
between them.'|| 'The excitement of one perceptual system thrown 
into activity inhibits the activity of all others, because it becomes the 
path of lowest resistance for the discharge of energy from the sensory 
to the efferent side of the whole cerebral system ; and the activity of 
the dominant system is thus augmented by the energy that it drains 
to itself from other parts.' ^ 

* Proc. R. S. Lxxvi, pp. i6i and 269 and previous 'Notes' in lii, liii, lx, 
Lxi, Lxiv and lxvi. 

f Cf. M. Prince, loc. cit. p. 230, quoted above, p. 40. 

X I.e. towards the Rolandic cortex. See p. 32 above, and the fifth law on 
p. 273 below, and the passage quoted from William James on p. 275 below. 

§ Physiological Psychology, p. 132. 

Ij Loc. cit. p. 133. Cf. above, p. 45. ^ Loc. cit. p. 105. 



78 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 6. 3 

We proceed to give some examples of the manner in which the 
facts of experience are fitted by Dr McDougall's generaHsation that, 
if a nervous arc of the higher level is sufficiently excited, it drains 
the excitement from all other active arcs. ' A faint tap per se,' writes 
William James, ' is not an interesting sound ; it may well escape being 
discriminated from the general rumour of the world. But when it is 
a signal, as that of a lover on the window-pane, it will hardly go 
unperceived.' * As the longed-for signal and its meaning have been 
imagined over and over again, the tap neurogram is already excited 
by anticipation. Accordingly, the tap itself, when it occurs, intensifies 
the excitement of this neurogram, through which (according to Dr 
McDougall's generalisation) the impulses from all the active arcs are 
then drained: the lover's tap drowns every other thought-activity. 
'We easily see now why the lover's tap should be heard — it finds a 
nerve-centre half ready in advance to explode. We see how we can 
attend to a companion's voice in the midst of noises which pass 
unnoticed though objectively much louder than the words we hear. 
Each word is doubly awakened; once from without by the lips of the 
talker, but already before that from within by the premonitory 
processes irradiating from the previous words, and by the dim arousal 
of all processes that are connected with the "topic" of the talk. The 
irrelevant noises, on the other hand, are awakened only once.' f 

Again, if an exciting thought suddenly occurs to one who is 
engaged in any form of physical activity, his movements become 
momentarily more vigorous — sometimes with unfortunate results, as 
when the happy recipient of a bright idea, who is at the moment 
singing in church, is surprised to find that he has drowned all music 
but his own J . In such a case the system of arcs, through which impulses 
are already being discharged towards and down the pyramidal tract, 
is already excited, and therefore — according to Dr McDougall's 
theory — the new excitement tends to be drained through that system, 
the outgoing impulses being correspondingly increased. In this case 
the path of discharge is already open when the new excitement 
originates. 

* Loc. cit. Vol. I, pp. 417, 418. f W. James, loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 450. 

% W. James, Vol. 11, p. 379. Another example is quoted from M. Fer6 by 
W. James: 'The strength of contraction of the subject's hand was measured by 
a self-registering dynamometer. Ordinarily the maximum strength, under simple 
experimental conditions, remains the same from day to day. But if simultaneously 
with the contraction the subject received a sensorial impression, the contraction 
was sometimes weakened, but more often increased. This reinforcing effect has 
received the name of dynamogeny. The dynamogenic value of simple musical 
notes seems to be proportional to their loudness and height.... The dynamogenic 
value of coloured lights varies with the colour.' 



II. 6. 3 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT 79 

A similar explanation applies when a sudden stimulus, or some 
other cause, opens a path of discharge — no matter what — for excite- 
ment already existing in the brain: the discharge that would in 
ordinary circumstances have been due to this cause is augmented by 
the previously existing excitement that is drained through the same 
arcs. For example: 'Everyone is familiar with the patellar reflex, or 
jerk upwards of the foot, which is produced by smartly tapping the 
tendon below the knee-pan when the leg hangs over the other knee. 
Drs Weir Mitchell and Lombard have found that when other sensa- 
tions come in simultaneously with the tap, the jerk is increased. 
Heat, cold, pricking, itching, or faradic stimulation of the skin, 
sometimes strong optical impressions, music, all have this dynamo- 
genie effect, which also results whenever voluntary movements are 
set up in other parts of the body, simultaneously with the tap.'* 
Or again: 'Everyone knows that under the influence of powerful 
emotion, whether of joy, anger, or fear, there is discharged an increase 
of energy to the muscles, sometimes of an intensity which enables an 
individual to exert force of which he is ordinarily incapable.' f The 
path by which impulses are being discharged to the muscles that 
exert the force, drains the emotional excitement also. 

Dr McDougall's theory thus fits and coordinates a number of facts 
of introspective and experimental psychology, as well as of experi- 
mental physiology. We shall shortly see that it resumes and enables 
us to predict many other facts that we have still to notice. Now, to 
'enable us to resume and predict a vast number of facts. ..is the sole 
justification which a scientific law is ever required to possess.' | We 
shall therefore summarise Dr McDougall's theory by enunciating, as 
our third law of thought, that Any nervous arc of the higher level, if 
intensely excited relatively to other higher level arcs, tends to drain the 
impulses from those other arcs ; and the same is true of connected arcs 
belonging to the spinal level. To this third law we may refer as the 
law of inhibition by drainage, or more shortly as the law of drainage. 

The draining of the impulses from all excited neurograms into 
that {X, say) which — or part of which — is most intensely excited, 
must, by our first law, result in the corresponding thought-activity 
X draining all other thought-activities out of the field of consciousness. 
Our third law thus accounts for the periodic contraction of the field, 

* W. James, loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 380. See also further examples of reinforce- 
ment — and especially of 'the overflow of reflex action into channels belonging 
primarily to other reflex-arcs than that under stimulation ' — given by Sherrington, 
loc. cit. p. 175. 

f M. Prince, loc. cit. pp. 433, 434. { B. Hart, loc. cit. p. 15. 



8o 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION 



II. 6. 3 



as our second law accounted for its expansion. Using the notation 
explained above*, we may now represent by means of a diagram 
(Fig. 5) the alternate gradual expansion and comparatively sudden 
contraction of the field of consciousness during the progress of an 
involuntary stream of thought. 




Ci 



D 



Fig- 5. 



The diagram shews, very much over-simplified, the cerebral paths 
followed by the nervous impulses during a single pulse of the field of 
consciousness. Each line in the diagram represents a neurogram, or 
system of connected nervous arcs, such that its internal synaptic 
resistances f are all less than those of the boundary synapses through 
which it is connected to other neurograms. As few as possible of these 
boundary synapses — all of equal resistance, let us suppose, until that 
resistance is lowered by excitement or increased by fatigue — are 

* On pp. 70, 74. 

t Or, more accurately, insulating strengths or thresholds: see p. 69. So long 
as we remember that a synapse between two neurones acts as an insulator (and not 
merely as a resistance) to feeble impulses, we may speak of the resistance offered 
by a synapse instead of speaking of the insulating strength or initial insulation 
or threshold of that synapse. 



II. 6. 3 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT 8i 

represented in the diagram. Moreover, arcs that do not become 
active during the pulse under consideration, are not shewn at all. 

The pulse begins with the thought -activity H in the focus of 
consciousness, A having just drained the impulses from all other 
active arcs. The excitement next diffuses from A to the connected 
neurograms A^, A^, ... (of which only A^ and A 2 are shewn in the 
diagram) ; from them to connected neurograms of the second order, 

Aj^i, ^12' •••' ^21' -^22' •••' ^^d so on. 

Meanwhile new sense impressions, or other thought-activities of 
independent origin, i3, (K, 23 ..., are arriving. If an incoming sensation 
(13, say) were sufficiently intense, the excitement of B would lower 
its resistance so much that B would drain excitement from all the 
active arcs, iS thus receiving the whole light of consciousness*. We 
shall, however, suppose that the stimulation of J5, C, ... is not strong 
enough to cause any of those neurograms to become the path of 
lowest resistance. On the contrary, we shall take it that the excitement 
of S, C, ... is so feeble that, as indicated in the diagram, it diffuses 
slowly in comparison with that of the neurograms excited through A . 
In other words, the thought-activities 13, (tt, IB, ... develop (acquire 
meaning) slowly in comparison with ^ and its associations. 

The diagram shews ^mi as being triply excitedf : by A^, by 
^j22 3-nd by Sjg separately. By this means the excitement of the arc 

* Cf . W. McDougall : ' It may be said with some plausibility that all of the 
sense impressions received by our organs solicit our attention. Each one, probably, 
tends, and tends more strongly the more intense it is, to determine the direction 
of our mental activity.' {Psychology, p. 57.) 

f In our diagram ^mn (and even ^mi) is thicker than A, suggesting increase 
of excitement during one pulsation. And this may well occur. When the increase 
is large, excitement becomes so great that it must quickly find an outlet — 
ordinarily by way of the pyramidal tract, causing movement. (See below 'fifth 
law,' p. 273.) But no such increase need take place in the earlier pulsations of 
a train of involuntary thinking: A may have been as much excited as ^mn 
afterwards becomes. In that case, however, the excitement of. A, as it diffused 
through A I, A „, All, ••• must, on the average, have passed through them without 
increase; and even with loss, if the new excitement ultimately reaching ^mn 
by way of B, C, ... be taken into account. It is to be noted that each neurone, 
and therefore each neurogram, may pass on either more or less nervous excitement 
than reached it, for each neurone acts — partly at least — as a relay. Chemical 
changes are set up in it by the incoming impulses, some of the energy of which 
is thus absorbed; but, on the other hand, the outgoing impulses due to the remain- 
ing energy that traverses the neurone are augmented by reason of the chemical 
changes in the neurone itself. 

We do well to note, also, that while ^mi, ^mn drains the 'excitement' 
(i.e. the nervous impulses — see pp. 28, 29) from the other active neurograms, it does 
not drain their 'activity.' On the contrary, as will be explained below (p. 85) 
the activity remains for a while and may give rise to further excitement — impulses 
traversing the neurograms in question and producing thought-activities — before 
•finally subsiding. 



82 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 6. 3 

(or system of arcs) ^nn^imi is intensified beyond that of other 
simultaneously active arcs. According to our third law, it therefore 
drains* the impulses from them all. But there are many other means 
by which the intensification of the draining arc might be effected. 
We proceed to study some that are of special importance. 

Among the specially important means of producing relatively — 
relative, that is, to the excitement of other active arcs — intense 
excitement in a particular arc or neurogram, and so causing it to 
drain the impulses and bring the corresponding thought-activity into 
the focus of consciousness, we may place first the direct stimulation 
of sensory end organs. A violent sense impression, ^, will always 
attract attention to itself, away from other objects — 5, in short, will 
drain the impulse — unless other thought-activities in progress are of 
pecuhar intensity. That is to say, although the excitement of S may 
be great, it may not be great relatively to that of other active arcs. 
My thought, as we have said, must be very engrossing if I fail to 
notice a thunder-clap nearby. And yet thought-activities may be so 
intense, so absorbing, as, in William James' words, 'not only to 
banish ordinary sensations, but even the severest pain.'f He goes 
on to quote Sir William Hamilton : 

Archimedes, it is well known, was so absorbed in geometrical meditation 
that he was first aware of the storming of Syracuse by his own death -wound, 
and his exclamation on the entrance of the Roman soldiers was: Noli 
turbare circulos meos ! In like manner Joseph ScaUger, the most learned of 
men, when a Protestant student in Paris, was so engrossed in the study of 
Homer that he became aware of the massacre of St Bartholomew, and of 
his own escape, only on the day subsequent to the catastrophe.... And it is 
reported of Newton that, while engaged in his mathematical researches, he 
sometimes forgot to dine J. 

A second important means of producing relatively intense excite- 
ment in a particular neurogram consists in the 'circular nervous 
process '§ which, as already || explained, multiplies the excitement 
whenever the affective-conative portion of an instinct-neurogram is 
stimulated. Terrify a man, or annoy him sufficiently, or (if he is in 

* The dotted paths by means of which the impulses are drained to ^miJum 
are for simpUcity shewn as being connected with the drained neurograms by 
means of single synapses only. We are, however, to suppose that impulses may 
be drained from every part of a neurogram at the same time. 

t Loc. cit. Vol. I, p. 419. 

% Sir W. Hamilton, Metaphysics, Lecture XIV, quoted by W. James {loc. cit.) 
who adds 'The oft-cited case of soldiers not perceiving that they are wounded is 
of an analogous sort.' 

§ W. McDougall, Physiological Psychology, p. ii6. 

!| See above, pp. 54, 55. 



II. 6. 3 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT 83 

love) mention the name of his sweetheart ; and his emotion — fear, or 
anger, or tender emotion — and his thought of its object will drive 
all else from his consciousness. In fact, an instinct-neurogram, when- 
ever and however it is stimulated, tends to drain the impulses and to 
bring its object into the focus of consciousness. 

Thirdly, multiple stimulation of any neurogram produces a higher 
degree of excitement than would be produced by one of the stimuli 
acting alone. We have already referred to this means of causing a 
particular neurogram to drain the impulses from all other active arcs. 
The arc which drained the impulses in our diagram (p. 80) owed its 
relatively intense excitement to this cause. And the profound effect 
of the lover's tap on the window, as well as other examples quoted 
above* from William James, further illustrate the influence which 
the excitation of a neurogram from two or more independent sources 
may have in bringing the corresponding thought-activity into the 
focus of consciousness. If, when listening to a lecture, some remark 
of the lecturer's starts in my mind a train of thought different from 
that which he is following, I probably pursue my own thoughts until, 
suddenly, a word or phrase of the speaker's happens exactly to fit 
what is passing in my mind at the moment. It is thus, as William 
James says, doubly awakened ; and, as its neurogram drains the impulse, 
it fills my field of consciousness, and my attention returns to the 
lecture. 

Professor Sherrington's experiments on spinal dogsf shew that 
multiple stimulation may cause an arc of the spinal level to drain 
excitement from connected arcs. If a sufficient stimulus be applied to 
the shoulder skin of a spinal dog, there result scratching movements 
of the hind leg on the same side, but no movements occur if the 
stimulus has less than a certain minimum intensity. If now an efferent 
arc, the sufficient excitement of which would result in scratching, be 
excited by a subminimal! stimulus, the application of a subminimal 
stimulus to another efferent arc leading to the same final common 
(efferent) path, will cause that path to drain excitement from both 

* On page 78. The following is another example from the same source: 
'In looking for any object in a room, for a book in a library, for example, we 
detect it the more readily if, in addition to merely knowing its name, etc., we 
carry in our mind a distinct image of its appearance.' (Vol. i, p. 504.) 

f I.e. dogs whose spinal cords have been transected in the region of the neck, 
so cutting off the brain from direct connexion with the reflex mechanisms of the 
spinal level. See above, p. 35. 

X It would be interesting to know whether the effect of the subminimal 
stimulus to the first efferent arc could be detected if the stimulation of the other 
efferent arc were not subminimal. In short, is it possible to detect an increment 
of the scratching reflex due to a subminimal stimulus? 

6—2 



84 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 6. 3 

excited efferent arcs*. The double stimulation of the final common 
path results in drainage. 

But Professor Sherrington went further, and shewed that the 
excitement of two neurograms, A and B, might combine to stimulate 
a third connected neurogram, C, even though A and B were not 
stimulated simultaneously, provided that too long an interval did 
not elapse between the stimulation of A and the subsequent stimula- 
tion of Sf. In other words, A when once excited remains active for 
a finite period of time. The same fact was clearly proved by experi- 
ments on reflex ' after-discharge. ':[: When the reflex was evoked by 
a strong stimulus, the excited arcs would go on discharging the 
impulses that produced the reflex movement, sometimes for as long 
as 10 or 15 seconds § after the stimulus had been discontinued. The 
fact that neurograms of the spinal level remain active for some time 
after being excited, suggests that the same is true of higher level 
neurograms also. There is one class of higher level neurograms of 
which it is obviously true, namely instinct-neurograms. ' In psycho- 
logical language it is said that the emotion, once excited, tends to 
maintain itself until exhaustion ensues, or until it has achieved its 
object.' II ' Fear, and the bodily symptoms of fear, provoked by a 
sudden and momentary impression, persist for some little time, though 
the harmless character of the disturbing incident is at once realised. 
Hence the sudden anger dies slowly away, though its cause be re- 
moved, and is apt to vent itself upon the unoffending. Hence the 
tears and lamentations may continue to flow though the cause of 
grief no longer exists. This slow passing away of the emotional state 
is of course best displayed by children, as by the child who continues 
to sob in his mother's arms though he has realised that the terrifying 
face or the growling wild beast was only his elder brother in disguise.' ^ 
But, while the 'after-discharge' of higher level neurograms is most 
manifest, and probably of longest duration, in the case of instinct- 
neurograms, there is no reason to doubt its existence in the case of 
other neurograms. The utterance of the lecturer whose argument 
I had ceased to follow will still serve to recall my wandering attention 
if, instead of synchronising with a similar element, ^ say, in my own 
train of thought, it followed it after not too long an interval : A must 
meanwhile have continued active. And during the moments that 
precede falling asleep at night — when, as we say, we have made our 

* Sherrington, loc. cit. Fig. 38, p. 119, and p. 123. f I-oc. cit. pp. 123, 124. 
{ Loc. cit. Lecture I, pp. 26-35. § ^oc. cit. p. 30. 

11 W. McDougall, Physiological Psychology, p. 115. If Loc. cit. p. 116. 



II. 6. 3 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT 85 

minds as far as possible blank — it is not only, so far as we can judge, 
the emotionally exciting events of the day that are revived by the 
continued activity and renewed excitement of the corresponding 
neurograms. We may take it, then, that every interest-system which 
includes affective-conative neurograms*, and probably every other 
(if there be any other) interest-system also, maintains its activity for 
some time after being excited. This is a most important principle. 
For it means that when once any considerable interest-system — 
especially if it be rich in emotional elements — has been stimulated, 
it will tend for some time to reinforce the excitement in any neuro- 
grams that are connected with it, and so to make such neurograms 
drain the impulses. In other words, any considerable interest f — 
which is sure to be also, in some measure, an emotional interest — 
continues, for some time after it has been awakened, to exercise a 
selective influence upon thought, tending to bring into the focus of 
consciousness those thought-activities which have some association 
with the interest in question J. An excellent example is furnished by 
Poincare's§ description how the discoverer's interest in his subject, 
and especially in the general trend of the argument, exercises a 
selective influence upon his involuntary thought-activities, tending to 
bring into the field of consciousness only those that are interesting, 
that fit in with the general trend of the argument in which he is 
interested ||. 

The continued activity of an interest-system once excited has an 
important bearing on education as well as on mathematical and other 

* It is doubtful whether any interest-system exists without affective-conative 
elements. 

t See the definition of 'interest' on pp. 62, 63. 

+ Dr Bernard Hart has already pointed out that an active complex (see above, 
p. 61) will thus influence trains of thought. But, as we have seen, the emotional 
element that is an essential element of a complex is not essential to the exercise 
of this influence : an active interest-system lacking affective-conative neurograms 
might still produce the effect. Dr Hart writes : ' Complexes, then, are causes which 
determine the behaviour of the conscious stream, and the action which they 
exert upon consciousness may be regarded as the psychological analogue of the 
conception of "force" in physics. They are not, of course, constantly active, but 
only become so under certain conditions. These conditions consist in the presence 
of a "stimulus," occurring whenever one or more of the ideas belonging to a 
complex is roused to activity, either by some external event, or by processes of 
association occurring within the mind itself.... So soon as this necessary stimulation 
has occurred, the complex immediately tends to exert its effect upon consciousness. 
The effect consists normally in the introduction into consciousness of ideas, 
emotions, and trains of activity belonging to the complex. Of the ideas, arguments, 
etc., presented to the individual, those which are in harmony with the complex 
are reinforced, whereas those not so in harmony tend to be inhibited and to lose 
their cogency.' (Loc. cit. pp. 62, 63.) 

§ See above, p. 7. || Poincare, loc. cit. pp. 50 to 52. 



86 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 6. 3 

research. It is essential to good teaching that the teacher awaken his 
pupils' interest in his subject, so that this interest may cooperate 
with his exposition in guiding their thoughts, emphasising those that 
are connected with this interest, and thus harmoniously building up 
the interest ' so that the mind can, without effort, take in the whole 
without neglecting the details.'* As Herbart wrote of the teacher's 
anecdote told to the schoolboys whose minds were wandering: No 
sooner did the teacher's words awaken the pupils' well-developed 
interest in the subject of the lesson, an interest containing 'strongly 
connected series with which the new impression easily combined, than 
out of new and old together a total interest resulted which drove 
the vagrant ideas below the threshold of consciousness, and brought 
...settled attention into their place.' f 

A less admirable or useful consequence of the maintenance of 
activity in an interest-system that has recently been stimulated is the 
'bias' it may give to one's thoughts. If we argue with a party 
politician, his political interest will quickly be excited and will there- 
after ' reinforce in his mind those arguments which support the view 
of his party.' | And, in a similar way, all my thinking of a man for 
whom I entertain a sentiment of hatred is biassed by my attitude §. 

The foregoing examples must suffice to illustrate this third means 
— multiple stimulation — by which a neurogram may be made to drain 
the impulse. Among the most important examples we have given are 
those in which the neurogram that drained the impulse did so because 
of its connexion with an active interest-system. We have next to 
notice that the mere connexion of a neurogram with an inactive 
interest-system may be sufficient to intensify excitement in that 
neurogram. This is a fourth important means of intensifying excite- 
ment in a neurogram so as to cause the draining of the impulse. 

Suppose that a neurogram A is connected, by equal and similar 
synapses, with two neurograms ylj and A 2', and that these in turn 
respectively connect, by equal and similar synapses, with two more 
equal and similar neurograms A^^ and ^21- Then, if A be excited, 
there is no reason why impulses from A should traverse either .4 1^^ 
or A2A21 in preference to the other: if the excitement of A issufficient, 
^1 and^2> 3^i^d afterwards ^^ and A 12, will become equally excited. 

But now suppose that A^ connects not only with A^ but also 
with Aj^2' Then, if the initial insulation (and resistance) of the 

* Poincar^, Inc. cit. p. 59. 

t Herbart, Psychologie als Wissenschaft, § 128, quoted by W. James, loc. cit. 
Vol. I, p. 418. (See p. 63 above.) 

I Cf. B. Hart, loc. cit. p. 65. § See above, pp. 60, 61. 



II. 6. 3 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT 87 



synapse A-^A^^ be less than that of the synapse A-^A^^ or A^A^^, 
impulses will begin to pass from A^ before they pass from A^. Suppose 
now that A^ (and likewise A^ is composed of more elementary neuro- 
grams, as shewn in the diagram (Fig. 6), the resistances between 
neighbouring elementary neurograms — for example, a\ and a'\ — 
being of course less than those of the synapses joining A-^ or A.^ to 
its neighbours. Then the excitement that escapes from ^^ must, in 
part at least, be conveyed through a'\ to the synapses A^A^^ and 
A-^A^^. Accordingly the transfer of impulses through a'\, if that 
elementary neurogram be taken sufficiently small, is greater, in the 
case supposed, than that through a'\ ; and, if this excess is sufficient, 
a'\ (or A-^ will, by our third law, drain the impulse from a"^ (or A^. 




If now the initial insulation of the synapse A^A^.^ is not less 
than that of ^i^^ (or of ^2)> it is still true that, so soon as the excite- 
ment of ylj is sufficient to diffuse across the synapse A^A-^^ as well as 
across A^A■^^^, the excitement oi A-^ will be greater than of A^, and 
A^ will therefore (by our third law) tend to drain the impulse, not 
only from A and A^, but from any other independently excited 
neurogram, B, C, .... 

In either case A^^ does not exercise any effect upon the excitement 
of ^1 (and thus upon the selection of ^^ rather than A^d^s the path 
to be followed by impulses from A) until A^^, has begun to be excited. 
It might therefore seem that we are again dealing with the influence 
of an active neurogram on the direction of the stream of impulses; 
and in a sense this is true. But the case here considered differs from 
that of multiple stimulation just discussed. For, in that case, the 
neurogram {B, say) whose activity intensified the excitement of the 
draining neurogram (say A-^ was already active before A-^ and joined 



88 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 6. 3 

with A in stimulating A^. Here however the directing neurogram 
A -^2 derived its activity from A^ and was therefore inactive when the 
excitement began to spread from A into A^ and ^2- This then may- 
be spoken of as the case of an inactive neurogram determining the 
direction of the flow, causing it to take place from ^ to ^i rather than 

from A to ^2- 

It follows that, in general, of two neurograms {A^ and A 2) con- 
nected with an active neurogram A, that one (A^) which is itself 
connected — through synapses of which the initial insulations and 
resistances are not too high — to more neurograms, whether active 
or inactive, than the other (.42) will, caeteris paribus, attract the 
impulse from A and drain the system. But observe that, if ^1 were 
connected to a third neurogram ^jg by a synapse of which the initial 
insulation was considerably higher than that of ^1^12, this third 
connexion might have Httle if any influence in directing the flow of 
impulses and the corresponding stream of thought. First suppose, 
as before, that the synapse A^A^^ has a lower initial insulation 
and resistance than the equal synapses, A-^A^^ and ^2^21- Then, of 
these three synapses, the impulse first crosses ^i^j^j; and if, as it 
proceeds along yl 12, it meets no higher insulation than A^^A^^, the 
impulses from A will continue to pass along AA^A^^- The larger 
the system of sufficiently low resistance paths into which A^^ leads, 
the more likely will this be to occur. Next suppose that the synapses 
Aj^Aii and A^A^i open first, and that A-^A^c^ opens afterwards. The 
amount of impulse crossing A ^A ^» will still depend on the resistance 
of the path A^^ as well as on that of the synapse A-^Ai^; and the larger 
the system of low resistance paths (and the lower their resistance) 
to which -4 12 leads, the more potent will its influence be in deciding 
the impulse from A to proceed by way of ylj rather than by way of 
A 2- If now there were a third neurogram ^^3 into which A^ led 
through a synapse A^A^^ of which the initial insulation were 
greater than that of Z^^, we see at once that, provided A^^ presents 
a path that remains of sufficiently low resistance until the excitement 
of ^1 has begun to wane, the synapse A-^^A^^ may never open. We 
conclude that it is the width (or size) and depth (or intensity*) of 
the interest-system to which yl^ is connected (through Ay^^ that 
'influences the attraction of the impulses from A into A-^ rather than 
into A^. Of course, if A^ is directly connected by low resistance 
synapses to several neurograms, ylj forms part of an interest-system 
and tends all the more to attract the impulse. But the point for us 

* See above, p. 44. 



II. 6. 3 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT 89 

to note is that the mere fact of A^'s connexion with an interest- 
system is sufficient to cause it (rather than ^2 having no such con- 
nexion) to attract the impulse; and the potency of ^^ in this matter 
is the greater, the wider and deeper (more intense) the interest -system 
to Aj^s connexion with which this potency is due*. 

Generalising this result we see that, of all neurograms A^, ..., A^ 
connected with A, that one which is itself connected to (or which 
forms part of) the widest and deepest interest-system, tends, other 
things being equal, to attract and drain the impulse from A . If now 
we suppose that there are other sources of excitement, B, C, ..., 
independent of ^, we finally arrive at the following corollary to our 
third law: Of all active neurograms, that one which is connected with (or 
forms part of) the widest and deepest interest-system, tends, other things 
being equal, to drain the impulse from them all. The psychological 
counterpart of this corollary is : Of all thought-activities on the fringe 
of consciousness at any moment, that one which is connected with 
the widest and strongest interest tends, other things being equal, to 
enter the focus and receive attention; or, more simply and loosely, 
we tend to think of things that interest us. We observe, in passing, 
that emotional interests — interests which cannot be excited without 
arousing emotional feeling — are generall}'^ the most intense (deepest) 
and therefore the most potent in guiding thought. For we have seen 
that stimulation of affective-conative neurograms generally causes 
a large increase of the total volume of cerebral excitement f which 
must result in the deepening of all the connected neurograms to 
which this intense excitement diffuses. And it follows that the 
intensity of a system of neurograms is greater, as a rule, the richer 
that system is in affective-conative elements. 

We proceed to illustrate our conclusion that even inactive interest- 
systems, especially if rich in affective-conative elements, may exercise 
a directing influence on neural impulses. 

William James observed that connexion with an interest-system, 
even if inactive, tended to make a neurogram drain the impulse. He 
points out, for example, that when a sense impression, 'without being 
either strong or of an instinctively [emotionally] exciting nature, is 
connected by previous experience and education with things that are 

* This result is still true, whether the impulse finally passes by way oi A^A^^ 
or AiAii'. equal external stimuli to Aj^^ and A 01 might necessitate the impulse 
being ultimately drained by one or other of these arcs, when the influence of A^^ 
and its interest-system would secure that the impulse was drained by A^A^ 
rather than hy A^A^i- 

t See above, p. 55. 



90 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 6. 3 

so. ..the result is that it is brought into the focus of the mind.'* He 
cites cases in which a thought-activity ' takes the initiative and draws 
our attention to itself, not by reason of its own intrinsic interest, but 
because it is connected with some other interesting thing.' f And, 
finally, he insists that 'in mature life we never attend to anything 
without our interest in it being in some degree derived from its 
connexion with other objects.' |...'What-we-attend-to and what- 
interests-us are synonymous terms.' § The facts that attract the 
attention of physicists and 'interest them are those... that have an 
analogy with many other facts and do not appear to us as isolated, 
but as closely grouped with others.' || 

We have already^ quoted Herbart's description of how the in- 
fluence of an active interest-system accounts for the maintained 
attention of disorderly pupils during their teacher's anecdote. At 
other times, the 'instruction being uninteresting, and discipline 
relaxed, a buzzing murmur was always to be heard, which invariably 
stopped for as long a time as an anecdote lasted. How could the boys, 
since they seemed to hear nothing, noticewhentheanecdotebegan?' * * 
We now have the answer. So soon as the neurograms excited (although 
very slightly, so that the corresponding thought-activities never got 
beyond the fringe of an inattentive boy's consciousness) by the 
teacher's utterance began to have connexions with an interest-system, 
even if inactive, these connexions tended to make the neurograms 
thus excited drain the impulse from all the other active neurograms. 
Thus the corresponding thought-activities came into the focus of 
consciousness. The interest-system was at the same time rendered 
active and maintained the boys' attention so long as it was, from 
time to time, re-excited by the anecdote that concerned it. 

Or suppose f f that my hobby is photography. It is unnecessary 
for the moment to assume, with Dr Hart, that my photography 
interest-system is rich in affective-conative elements — in other words, 
that my interest in photography is coloured by emotion — although 
this will doubtless be the case. 'It is obvious that the existence of 
this hobby will continually affect the flow of my consciousness.' Even 
if I have not been thinking of photography for some time, so that 

* Loc. cit. Vol. I, p. 417. He adds : ' The impression draws an interest from them, 
or perhaps it even fuses into a single complex object with them.' 
f Loc. cit. Vol. I, p. 449. X Loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 434. 

§ Loc. cit. Vol. II, p. 559. i| Poincare, loc. cit. p. 27. 

Tf Above, p. 86. 
** Herbart, Psychologic ah Wissenschaft, § 128, quoted by W. James, loc. cit. 
Vol. I, p. 418. 

ft Cf. B. Hart, loc. cit. p. 61. 



II. 6. 3 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT 91 

my photography interest-system is inactive, 'scenes which would 
otherwise be indifferent to me will frequently arouse interest as possible 
material for a picture: if I peruse a newspaper an article upon 
photography will at once arrest my attention.'* 

Or suppose, with Dr McDougallf, that, being interested in animal 
behaviour, my glance falls upon a cat seated on the back of a pony. 
I may not have been thinking of animal psychology for a long time, 
and my interest-system may be quite inactive, yet, 'out of all the 
details of the scene presented to my vision, my mind seizes upon 
these two objects and their relation.' Had the cat 'been seated on 
the ground at some little distance from the pony, I should have 
noticed both animals only in the most fleeting fashion, if at all.' It is 
only because, in their attitude of friendliness, 'they mean| for me 
far more than is actually presented to the eye, that the situation 
appeals to an interest and draws my attention.' § Or again, to go 
back to the 'monster of iniquity' described above ||, my sentiments 
of hatred may be quite inactive, I may not have seen or thought of 
him for some little time, and yet ' if I pass by a crowd of which he is 
a member, my eye singles him out ' ; ' if I overhear his name mentioned 
by others in conversation, I am all agog to hear what is said.' ^ 

We have already* * noticed the bearing on the teacher's art of the 
proposition that connexion with an active interest-system increases 
the likelihood that any neurogram (directly excited by the teacher) 
will drain the impulse and so bring the corresponding thought-activity 
into the focus of consciousness. The more general proposition stated 
in the corollary to our third law, and illustrated by the foregoing 
examples, has pedagogic consequences of even greater importance. 

That corollary tells us that, in involuntary thinking, with which 
alone we are as yet concerned, we are more likely to think of objects 
whose neurograms are connected with interest-systems than of other 
objects whose neurograms have no such connexions. And we are 
most likely to think of objects whose neurograms are connected with 
interest-systems that are most extensive and richest in affective- 

* B. Hart, loc. cit. p. 61. Jung's experiment, cited by Dr Hart {loc. cit. p. 70), 
further illustrates the influence of inactive interest-systems, for it shews how the 
connexion of a thought-activity (in this case a word pronounced by the experi- 
menter) with an interest-system may divert the attention of persons experimented 
on from the business in hand — that of replying with a ' reaction-word ' — and so 
delay the response. 

f Psychology, pp. 99, loi. 

X I.e. have associations or, in other words, are connected with an interest. 
See above, p. 45. 

§ Loc. cit. p. loi. I! See pp. 60. 61. 

If W. McDougall, Psychology, p. 116. ** Above, p. 85. 



93 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 6. 3 

conative elements: a wide emotional interest attracts thought- 
activities associated with it into the focus of consciousness. 

Now, an 'inactive' interest-system becomes active in the process 
of causing a connected neurogram to drain the impulse. It follows, 
as is indeed obvious to introspection, that wide and deep interest- 
systems are peculiarly liable to be rendered active. So long as the 
activity of an interest-system continues, other objects whose neuro- 
grams are connected with the system are especially likely to receive 
attention. As their neurograms from time to time drain the impulse, 
not only do these neurograms become connected with the system (the 
connecting synapses having their resistances permanently lowered in 
some degree by the transfer of excitement across them during draining) ; 
but the neurograms of other thought-activities, in the field of con- 
sciousness at the moment of draining, become connected with the 
interest-system as all are drained together. Thus an interest-system 
tends to grow. And the tendency is the greater, the wider and deeper 
(more intense) the system already is. 

The instinct of curiosity, with the emotion of wonder that forms 

its affective part, influences the growth of interest-systems. It would 

seem that the appropriate stimulus of this instinctive process is the 

unlooked-for occurrence together of familiar objects habitually 

noticed but not previously associated*. So soon then as a neurogram 

A (especially if it be the neurogram of some simple and familiar object) 

drains excitement from one or more other neurograms B, C, ... 

(especially if they be neurograms of simple and familiar objects) and 

so becomes connected with them for the first time, a ' circular nervous 

process ' is set going whereby the excitement of the brain is increased. 

Thus the connexions between A and B, C, ... are deepened (rendered 

more intense) and the interest-system A-B-C-... becomes more 

permanent. Moreover, the activity of ^, as well as of J5, C, ... , is 

increased; so that not only do ^, 13, (ft, ... tend to remain in the 

field of consciousness for some time, but other low resistance paths 

tend to form between A and the interest-system B-C-D- ... as the 

excitement gradually diffuses throughout that system. This tendency 

to form other connexions between A and the interest-system with 

which it has, perhaps fortuitously, become connected is the conative 

element of the instinctive process. 

* Cf. W. McDougall: 'The native excitant of the instinct would seem to be 
any object similar to, yet perceptibly different from, famiUar objects habitually 
noticed ' (Social Psychology, p. 57); and Poincare, 'Elegance' (which, as Poincare 
explains, causes emotion, doubtless the emotion of wonder) ' may result from the 
feeling of surprise caused by the unlooked-for occurrence together of objects not 
habitually associated.' {Lac. cit. p. 31.) 



II. 6. 3 INVOLUNTARY THOUGHT 93 

For example children who are familiar both with yellowness and 
with stockings, but in whose minds these two things have not pre- 
viously been associated, are surprised — wonder — when they see a boy 
dressed in the uniform of Christ's Hospital. Their curiosity is awakened. 
Its conative element makes the children want an explanation of the 
yellow stockings; that is, they want to know the meaning of the 
yellow stockings; or, in other words, each of them wants to form 
further neurograms connected both with his yellowness-neurogram 
and with his stockings-neurogram, and so connecting these two 
neurograms with each other. If an adult is present, the conative 
tendency may cause the children to say : ' Why does that boy wear 
yellow stockings? ' But if not, and if the children have not been well 
brought up, their curiosity may find a less innocent outlet. 

Take a more serious illustration. Suppose the anecdote about 
Newton and the apple to be true. After much reflexion, and ultimately 
with considerable excitement, Newton has formulated the second law 
of motion: that force varies as the mass-acceleration it produces. 
His 'force' interest-system (including an 'acceleration' neurogram) 
being wide and deep and, we will suppose, active, he goes into the 
orchard and sees an apple fall with uniform acceleration. 'Accelera- 
tion' connects its fall with the 'force' interest. Its fall, rather than 
any other object in his field of vision, tends therefore* to attract his 
notice ; and the ' fall ' neurogram is for the first time connected with 
the 'force' interest-system. In the unlooked-for occurrence together 
of the (to Newton) familiar conceptions of 'falling' and 'force,' there 
is the appropriate stimulus to awaken curiosity. He feels the emotion 
of wonder f. The conative element in his curiosity makes him seek 
for an explanation of the connexion between force and falling; he 
wants the meaning of the connexion ; he wants, that is, other associa- 
tions. And he finds what he wants in the conception of a general law 
of gravitation. His 'force' interest-system is for ever the wider for 
this experience. Whenever in future he thinks of falling, he tends to 
think of force — the force of gravity — and to feel wonder. 

And, in general, the cooperation of curiosity-wonder in the develop- 
ment of wide interest-systems must increase their depth (intensity) 
as well as their width; for, if we have correctly interpreted the part 
played by this instinct, it must continually introduce affective- 
conative elements into every growing interest-system. 

* In accordance with the corollary to our third law. 

t Among the visceral arcs included in the affective- conative neurogram are 
probably arcs the excitement of which causes the erection of the hairs of one's 
body : the phenomenon known as goose fiesh. 



94 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 6. 3 

The function of curiosity would thus seem to be to intensify the 
excitement of a neurogram with which a growing interest-system has 
just made connexion; and so, if possible, to multiply the connexions 
between the newly incorporated neurogram and the old interest- 
system. Apart from some such effect, the excitement would tend to 
flow at once away from the newly incorporated neurogram into the 
centre of the old interest-system: the fall of the apple would have 
made Newton think again of force and he would quickly have for- 
gotten, if indeed he had ever noticed, that the apple's fall had anything 
to do with the return of his attention to a favourite topic. For, if we 
conceive the neurograms of which an interest-system is composed as 
being on the average more intimately interconnected towards the 
centre of the system than towards the periphery (and we can hardly 
conceive them otherwise), the argument on pp. 86 to 88 shews that 
excitement tends continually to spread in the direction of increasing 
multiplicity of interconnexions. From any neurogram on the 
periphery of an interest-system, the excitement tends to flow towards 
the heart of that system. This conclusion has, as we shall see later*, 
an important bearing on the problem of training character. 

* See below, Chapter i6. 



CHAPTER 7 
WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 

§ I. Psycho-physical Interaction. 

The preceding discussion of our third law of thought and its conse- 
quences has been concerned with involuntary* thinking. Is this the 
only kind of thinking? Many psychologists and physiologists believe 
that 'if we could completely describe the structure of the nervous 
system of any man or animal, and had a complete knowledge of the 
laws of the physical and chemical processes that occur in it, we should 
be able to account completely for all the conduct of that individual.' f 
Are they right? Or were we right in adopting J the 'common-sense' 
view that human souls exist and influence human behaviour? 

The former opinion is held in several forms. Some of its supporters 
follow Huxley in supposing that our thought-activities — whether 
perceptions, images, feelings or volitions — as such, have no influence 
upon our conduct; that they are mere 'epiphenomena,' caused by, 
but not reacting upon, neural activities in the brain. Others say that 
the psychoses and the neuroses form two series that run parallel to 
one another but never meet or interact. And others again hold that 
the physical and the psychical are two modes in which one series of 
real eyents appears to us, and that therefore the two series of appear- 
ances run parallel to one another. Hence this \dew, in its second and 
third forms, is known as the 'hypothesis of psycho-physical parallel- 
ism.' § 

The alternative to epiphenomenalism, as well as to psycho- 
physical parallelism, is the hypothesis of psycho-physical interaction. 
According to this view, soul and body, or psychical and physical 
processes, act and react upon one another so that psychical processes 
play a part in determining conduct. And this view is not merely the 
common-sense view, as we have called it: it is not confined to the 
man in the street or to old-fashioned philosophers, but is shared by 

* See above, p. 65. 

f McDougall {Physiological Psychology , p. 7) thus formulates a view which 
he characterises as questionable and paradoxical. The following paragraph, 
concerning the hypothesis of psycho-physical interaction and its alternatives, 
closely follows McDougall's account. 

J See above, p. 9. § See footnote t on P- 65. 



96 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. i 

some of those who, in recent years, have done most to advance 
psychological science. 

Thus Dr McDougall* has argued that the hypothesis of interaction 
is, a priori, more reasonable than that of parallelism or epiphenomenal- 
ism. William James also has declared his belief in psycho-physical 
interaction, but rather for ethical f than for logical or psychological 
reasons. Dr Bernard Hart and Professor Spearman are on the same 
side I . Dr Morton Prince agrees that volition can govern conduct §. 
Mr A. F. Shand must also be reckoned an interactionist, for, although 
he regards every interest-system as possessing one or more 'wills' of 
its own II, yet he recognises the difficulty of asserting that there is no 
will but that which belongs to some emotion or sentiment; and he 
speaks of choosing between the wills of conflicting sentiments by a 
will which belongs to neither system^. He adds: 

Now supposing that such volitions occur in fact, even if rarely, from 
what do they proceed?... our personality does not seem to be the sum of 
the dispositions [systems] of our emotions and sentiments. These are our 
many selves; but there is also our one self. This enigmatical self which 
reflects on their systems, estimates them, and, however loath to do it, 
sometimes chooses between their ends, seems to be the central fact of our 
personaUty. 

If this be the fact, it is not the kind of fact which we can take into 
account. The science of character will be the science of our sentiments and 
emotions [or, more generally, of our interest-systems] — of these many 
selves, not of this one self. 

But it is just this 'central fact of our personality' that we are here 
concerned with. 

It is true that lists of very distinguished names might also be cited 
in support of parallelism or epiphenomenalism. We are not here 

* Physiological Psychology, p. ii. The argument concludes: 'We are then 
logically compelled to believe that neural processes and psychical processes are 
causally related according to ascertainable laws.' 

•f Loo. cit. Vol. I, p. 454. 

J ' Many of us,' they write, ' are looking forward to the day when psychological 
text-books will become less exclusively pre-occupied with sensations and 
epistemology, but turn rather to appreciating the mind or "soul" as the agent 
in conduct.' (Bernard Hart and C. Spearman, B J. P. Vol. v (1912-13), p. 77.) 
They add, in a footnote: 'Significant of the coming change are such definitions 
of psychology as that of McDougall (Ph. Ps. p. i); also such books as Le Leggi 
del LavoYO Mentale by Guido della Valle, or the works of C. Henry (Paris).' 

§ Loc. cit. p. 458. 

II 'Strength or weakness of will, other things being equal, varies with the 
strength or weakness of the emotion [i.e. in Mr Shand's terminology, a particular 
kind of interest of which several may be contained in one sentiment] or sentiment 
to which it belongs; and hence it is that we find the same man strong in some 
directions and weak in others.' {Loc. cit. p. 65.) 

^ Loc. cit. p. 66. 



II. 7. 1 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 97 

concerned to strike a balance between divergent opinions. We do 
well, however, to note that neither the interactionists nor those who 
hold a contrary view are able to give conclusive evidence in support 
of their opinions. 'The result is two conceptions of possibility' — that 
interaction does, and that interaction does not, take place — 'face to 
face, with no facts definitely enough known to stand as arbiter between 
them.' * Any decision between the opposing theories must therefore 
be provisional ; but some decision, however tentative, is necessary for 
our purpose, nor can it be further postponed. Following William 
James, we turn to ethical considerations to incline the balance so as 
to enable us to decide. 

It may be that voluntary and involuntary thinking are essentially 
the same; that we cannot, if we will, direct or even influence the 
stream of our thought ; that our feeling of effort, when (as it seems to 
us) we overcome our tendency f to think of something interesting, 
and, instead, concentrate our attention upon some unpleasant duty, 
is not more than a passing index of a conflict of interests J. On the 
other hand, ' the whole feeling of reaUty, the whole sting and excite- 
ment of our voluntary life, depends on our sense that in it things are 
really being decided from one moment to another, and that it is not 
the dull rattling off of a chain that was forged innumerable ages ago. 
This appearance, which makes life and history tingle with such a 
tragic zest, may not be an illusion. '§ 

If the former theory — that the psychic side of human nature is 
not free to influence the stream of thought and to direct the accom- 
panying neural activity so as to produce desired movements — be 
correct, then we need make (or, rather, pretend to make) no further 
effort, whether to formulate laws of thought or to accomplish any 
other thing: all will happen as is foreordained. And, if we were to 
make the mistake of assuming that the psychic side of human nature — 
our souls and their agents, our wills — were free, no harm would be 
done by our (imaginary) decision to accept the wrong theory; for our 
mistake (like everything else) would be inevitable. But if the second 
theory is right, if psycho-physical interaction is a reality and human 
souls are really free to influence neural activities by the exercise of 
will and so to modify behaviour, the consequences of assuming and 
acting upon the opposite theory would be terrible in the extreme. 
Being born to freedom, we should live as slaves. There is therefore 
everything to lose, and nothing to gain, by deciding against the 

* Cf . W. James, loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 454. f Corollary to third law : see above, p. 89. 

X Cf. W. James, loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 451. § W. James, loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 453. 



98 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 1 

hypothesis of interaction, unless and until we are forced to do so by 
the facts. We shall therefore make the assumption that psycho- 
physical interaction* does take place, that our wills are free to inter- 
vene in the routine of involuntary thinking and to influence the 
direction of the stream of thought; and we shall shortly formulate 
this assumption in our fourth law of thought. 

§ 2. Will-power, the single general factor in human qualities. 

The word 'will' is used in common speech with at least two 
different meanings. In the first place, we speak of the effort of will 
by which a man overcomes a temptation or forces up the index of 
a dynamometer. And, secondly, we speak of the strength of will 
exhibited by one who, wearing down all opposition, keeps on and on 
until he has achieved his purpose. But the question how far I am 
able, by the exercise of my will, to give immediate effect to my present 
purpose, is quite different from the question whether my motives are 
so persistent that, without changing my mind, I shall go on making 
one effort of will after another until I have attained my more remote 
object. We shall distinguish between the two senses in which the 
word ' will ' is commonly employed by using the word ' Will ' — written 
with a capital 'W' — only with the former meaning: Will at short 
range, as exercised in making a sudden voluntary effort. But will in 
the second sense, will at long range, we shall speak of, not as will, 
but as purpose. Failure to distinguish Will (will at short range) from 
purpose (will at long range) is responsible for the statement of Binet 
and Simon that experimental tests almost completely eliminate 
individual differences in volition (i.e. purpose) f. But, as we shall see 
reason to believe, the same mental tests may prove an effective means 
of measuring differences in Will % . 

* The manner of the interaction is discussed below. But it may help the 
reader if, without prejudice and subject to the more careful statements that follow, 
we note here that the assumed interaction of soul and body consists in the soul 
being acted upon by every neural activity that affects consciousness (and possibly 
by some neural activities that remain unconscious), while the soul acts upon the 
body and influences conduct only by 'willing,' a process that involves the con- 
centration of excitement in a limited system of neural arcs. It is because, on this 
view, the soul acts upon the body and produces the results that we observe in 
conduct only by 'willing,' and not because the Will is the only attribute of the 
soul, that we shall in the sequel have so much less to say about the soul than about 
the Will. But see footnote * on p. loo, below. 

f 'Le Developpement de I'lntelligence,' Annee Psychologique, i4Sannee (1900), 

P- 77- 

I It is also responsible for Dr Edward Webb using the words ' volition or will * 
('Character and Intelligence,' Monograph Supplement to the B. J. P., Cambridge, 
1915, p. 60) where we should have preferred to substitute the word 'purpose': 
see below, p, 160. 



II. 7. 2 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 99 

We are going to assume that men are free to influence, and even 
to control, their conduct by the exercise of Will; but we want, if 
possible, to express this assumption in more precise language. We 
want, in fact, not merely to say that psychic activity interacts with, 
and may determine, neural activity, but to arrive at as precise a 
conception as possible of the manner in which this interaction takes 
place. 

One possible way suggests itself at once. If, by the exercise of Will, 
it were possible to increase the excitement of a nervous arc of the 
higher level, then, according to our third law*, that arc would tend 
to drain the impulses from all other active arcs; and this draining of 
the impulses would, by our first lawf, determine the thought-activity 
next to enter the focus of consciousness. Now, among those who 
accept the interaction hypothesis, there is coming to be a general 
consensus of opinion that this is how Will does act: it reinforces 
excitement in some particular active neurogram, with the result that 
impulses traversing other active arcs are drained through that 
neurogram, and attention is accordingly concentrated on the thought- 
activity to which the neurogram in question corresponds. The following 
quotations from William James and Dr McDougall illustrate their 
opinion that the function of Will is to concentrate attention, or (what 
amounts to the same thing J) to reinforce excitement in some particular 
system of higher level arcs, and so to facilitate the drainage, through 
that system, of impulses from all other active arcs. 

William James describes the essential volitional act either as 
'attending' or as 'reinforcing.' He writes: 

The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over 
and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one 
is compos sui if he have it not. An education which would improve this 

faculty would be the education par excellence^ Attention with effort is 

all that any case of voUtion implies. The essential achievement of the will, in 
short, when it is most 'voluntary,' is to attend to a difficult object and hold 

it fast before the mind. The so-doing is tY\efiat\\ To sum it all up in a word, 

the terminus of the psychological process in volition, the point to which the will is 
directly applied, is always an idea. There are at all times some ideas from which 
we shy away like frightened horses the moment we get a glimpse of their 
forbidding profile upon the threshold of our thought. The only resistance which 
our will can possibly experience is the resistance which such an idea offers to being 
attended to at all. To attend to it is the volitional act, and the only inward 
volitional act which we ever perform^.... The soul presents nothing herself; 

* See above, p. 79. f See above, p. 66. 

X In view of our third law of thought. See also footnote f on p. 100, below. 

§ Loc. cit. Vol. I, p. 424. II Loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 561. 

^[ Loc. cit. Vol. II, p. 567. 

7—2 



100 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 2 

creates nothing; is at the mercy of the material forces for all possibilities; 
but amongst these possibilities she selects; and by reinforcing one and 
checking others, she figures not as an 'epiphenomenon,' but as something 
from which the play gets moral support*. 

Dr McDougall also speaks of an act of Will both as a' concentrating 
of attention ' and as a ' reinforcement ' : 

It would seem, in fact, that the Will concentrates along one system of 
channels the free nervous energy of all the brain at the moment. . . .Voluntary 
attention to any object... is a reinforcement of the idea or percept, in virtue 
of which it is held more vividly and continuously in the focus of conscious- 
ness to the exclusion of other percepts and ideas; and this, too, seems to 
imply a concentration of nervous energy in the neural systems whose 
excitement underlies the percept or idea.... An effort of Will seems then to 
be always the voluntary concentration of attention upon some object, the 
reinforcement of percept or idea, and its essential physiological result seems 
to be a higher degree of that concentration of the free energy of the brain along 
one system of paths which, as we have seen, is the physiological condition 
of all attention t-... The concentration of nervous energy- that results from 

* Loc. cit. Vol. II, p. 584. We notice the use of the word 'reinforcing.' 

Our quotation, here and again on p. 149 of this passage from William James, 
must not be regarded as indicating that we accept William James' view of the 
soul as creating nothing and obtaining everything from material sources. We 
have (see above, p. 95) on the contrary' spoken of psychical and physical pro- 
cesses as acting and reacting upon one another. In our view the first cause may 
as well be psychical as physical. In other words, the soul may have a structure 
of its own that is no more dependent on the neurography than the neurography 
is upon the soul. But the action and reaction of soul and neurography upon each 
other tend to make them correspond each to each, and this correspondence is our 
justification for saying (on p. 291 below) that a man's character is determined 
when his neurography and [the strength of] his Will are determinately known. 

J See below, page 117. Dr McDougall has recently pointed out that an 
effort of Will may so increase the concentration of excitement in one system of 
paths as to lower the resistance of — or ' canalise ' — that system in a very marked 
degree, an effect which has so often been overlooked. Thus he writes: '...the 
laboratory studies of the Wiirzburg school or type... have made it clear that in 
a great number of experimental investigations, especially the numerous elaborate 
experiments on memory and association, a factor of principal importance has 
commonly been altogether overlooked, namely, the influence of the intention of 
the subject, of the setting of the will, or as the Germans say, the influence of the 
Aufgabe (i.e. of the task prescribed and voluntarily accepted by the subject), 
the determining tendency, the attitude of consciousness, in short of conation. 
They have made it clear that, in the past, experimenters in this field (accepting 
more or less explicitly the atomistic psychology and the atomistic phj'siology of 
the nervous system) have attributed to links of simple association alone, effects 
in the way of reproduction which are due to two broadly distinguishable factors, 
namely, associative links on the one hand and the \vill of the subject on the 
other; and it appears clearly enough that in many such cases of co-operation of 
the two factors, the latter, conation, is of altogether preponderant importance. 

'I may illustrate the point very simply from experiments of my own. It is 
possible to read repeatedly a list of say twelve nonsense syllables in an attitude 
of indifference, one as nearly as possible passive; and 150 repetitions of such 
reading may fail to form such associations as will render possible the free repro- 
duction of the series; yet, if the will be bent upon the task of learning the row, it 



II. 7. 2 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY loi 

volition is unlike the behaviour of all known kinds of physical energy, the 
universal law of which is diffusion from the place of higher potential to 
places of lower potential. In volition we seem to concentrate nervous 
energy from places of low potential into the place of highest potential, 
and perhaps we shall have to recognise in this concentration of nervous 
energy a unique effect of psychical activity*. 

Dr Morton Prince also speaks of the Will as operating by rein- 
forcing the excitement of some particular neurogram. After pointing 
out the influence of a sentiment upon a sequence of involuntary 
thought-activities, Dr Prince adds: '...volition itself can control, 
reinforce, and determine the particular sentiment and thus govern 
conduct.... 'f 

If the soul has this power — which we agree to call Will — of 
reinforcing excitement and so concentrating attention J, it should be 
capable of affecting the stream of consciousness at any moment. Will 
should therefore be a general factor characteristic § of the individual 
and apt to make itself felt in all intellectual processes ||. But is there 
any evidence of the existence of such a general factor? 

The existence of many general factors — or rather group factors ^ — 
called faculties, was formerly, and, as it now appears, fallaciously 
admitted. The fallacy consists in supposing that ' whatever is true of 
any one performance is necessarily also true of all other performances 

can be committed to memory by as few as lo or 12 readings.' (American Journal 
of Insanity, Vol. lxix (1913), p. 869.) See also a paper on 'Some Experiments on 
Learning and Retention' by May Smith and W. McDougall (J5. J. P. Vol. x 
(March, 1920), p. 199). 

* W. McDougall, Physiological Psychology, pp. 165, 166, 167. 

f Loc. cit. p. 458. 

X Cf. Dr P. B. Ballard: 'Looked at purely from the psychological side, will 
is hardly distinguishable from attention.' (Handwork as an Educational Medium, 
Second Edition (1915), p. 64.) 

§ Cf. W. James on Will: 'Of course we measure ourselves by many standards. 
Our strength and our intelligence, our wealth and even our good luck, are things 
which warm our heart and make us feel ourselves a match for life. But deeper 
than all such things, and able to suffice unto itself without them, is the sense of 
the amount of effort [Will] which we can put forth. Those are, after all, but effects, 
products, and reflections of the outer world within. But the effort seems to belong 
to an altogether different realm, as if it were the substantive thing which we are, 
and those were but externals which we carry. If the "searching of our heart 
and reins" be the purpose of this human drama, then what is sought seems to 
be what effort we can make. He who can make none is but .a shadow; he who 
can make much is a hero.' (Loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 578.) 

1 1 'Development of will power in connexion with any activity is accompanied 
by a development of will power as a whole.' (Scripture, Psych. Rev. Vol. vi, p. 165, 
quoted by C. Spearman, Am. J. P. Vol. xv, p. 216.) 

^ ' Group factors ' of a series of mental qualities (or other correlated variables) 
are independent of each other, and each of them is independent of all except the 
members of a certain group of the mental qualities (or other variables) in question. 
See Appendix B, § i, footnote * on p. 476 below. For the definition of a 'single 
general factor' see below. Appendix B, § 3, footnote § on p. 477. 



102 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 2 

usually bearing the same name, such as "apprehension," "discrimina- 
tion," "judgment," etc.; it was the old theory — so easy to scotch, 
but hard to kill — of "faculties." This fallacy, though long banished 
from open daylight, still strangely persists in dark corners; it even 
secretly governs the thoughts of many who believe themselves to be 
strongly opposing it.... '* 

For example, it was once usual to speak of a ' faculty of observa- 
tion'; and it was implied that an increasing capacity for observing 
any one class of objects— say, millinery — must be due to the develop- 
ment of this faculty, and that therefore a capacity for observing any 
other class of objects — buildings, let us suppose — must necessarily be 
improved at the same time. No evidence has, however, been forth- 
coming to shew that whoever can bring back from a walk along Bond 
Street the most accurate description of the hats in the shop-windows 
will, on the average, also bring back the best account of the archi- 
tecture of that street. On the contrary, the milliner, just because she 
gives her attention to the hats, is precluded from observing the 
buildings; while the architect, whose attention is attracted to the 
buildings, fails to notice the hats. In short, training persons to 
observe hats does not result in their observing buildings. Power of 
observing is not 'transferred' from one class of objects to another. 
'To involve transfer,' says Dr Sleight, 'the common elements must 
be severable from the complex in which they occur.' f There is no 
general faculty of observation that may be developed by practice on 
one kind of material and be afterwards employed on quite another. 
And so with other supposed faculties. 'The balance of expert opinion 
is now so solidly against the general dogma of formal [faculty] 
training that as an educational force it must be regarded as mori- 
bund.' I 

While, however, the old classification of faculties is falling into 
disrepute, evidence of the existence of one general factor, common to 
all intellectual processes, is being accumulated. 

In an article on 'General Intelligence,' published in the American 
Journal of Psychology for 1904, Professor Spearman argued that ' all 
branches of intellectual activity have in common one fundamental function 
{or group of functions)'^; and even that this fundamental function 
enters into sensory discrimination no less than into the more com- 
plicated intellectual activities of practical life. 

* B. Hart and C. Spearman, B. J. P. Vol. v (1913). P- 64. 
t B. J. P. Vol. IV (1911-12), p. 455. 
X J. Adams, loc. cit. p. 222 (quoted on p. 18 above). 
§ Am. J. P. Vol. XV (1904), p. 284. 



II. 7. 2 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 103 

This conclusion has been challenged*. While, however, an 
'absolute identification of General Intelligence and General Sensory 
Discrimination (if it has ever been suggested by any but its opponents) 
cannot be maintained, 'f the presence of some one quality — general 
ability, or whatever it be called — as a general factor in all intellectual 
activity and as the dominant partner in higher intellectual processes 
is becoming as widely recognised among experimental psychologists 
as it has always been among those who direct industry, commerce, 
or other departments of national life J. Indeed, as we are about to see§, 
the measure of each of any set of sufficiently dissimilar mental 
qualities tends to be compounded, according to the vector law||, of 
a single general factor common to all the qualities and of a specific 
factor (independent both of the general factor and of the other 
specific factors) belonging to that one quality alone. 

Professor Spearman^, Dr Bernard Hart**, Mr Cyril Burtft. 
Dr Webb|J and others have collected a very great number of facts of 
which an immediate and complete explanation is furnished by suppos- 
ing that ' all performances depend in a certain degree upon one and 
the same general factor, provisionally termed "General Ability "§§.' 
No other hypothesis has yet been suggested that so successfully and 
so simply sums up all the known facts as does the hypothesis of a single 

* Notably by Dr William Brown, Mental Measurement, p. 89. 

f C. Burt, B.J. P. Vol. Ill (1909-10), p. 165. He adds: 'Dr Spearman has 
written to me: "This conclusion of mine was badly worded. I did not mean (as 
others have naturally taken it) that general intelligence was based on sensory 
discrimination; if anything, vice versa. I take both the sensory discrimination 
and the manifestations leading a teacher to impute general intelligence to be 
based on some deeper fundamental cause, as sketched in the Zeitschrift fiir 
Psycholo^ie, Vol. xli, p. no, para. 5."' 

X For example, Mr W. L. Hichens, Chairman of Messrs Cammell, Laird and 
Co. Ltd., addressing the Incorporated Association of Head Masters on 9th January, 
1917, said that 'the University men he had engaged had all turned out successful 
up to date. He went to Oxford and had a look round. He did not look out for 
the fellow who had got a First in Greats or History, but for the fellow who might 
have got a First — if he had worked,' i.e. for the man with ability. (Quoted from 
Cassier's Magazine, Vol. 51, No. 6, 1917, p. 87.) 

Cf. also Dr William Temple : ' It scarcely matters what subject is taught: the 
vital matter is that the child should learn "attention" in general.' {The Nature 
of Personality, p. 28, quoted on p. 137 below.) 

§ See below, pp. no et seq. 

II The law that tells us how far off, and in what direction, lies a not-too- 
distant ship when we know how far it is north (or south) of us and how far it is 
east (or west) of us. The law is mathematically expressed in equation (4) in § 3 of 
Appendix B, below. 

]f Loc. cit. and B. J. P. Vol. v (1912-13), pp. 51-79. 
** B. J. P. Vol. V, pp. 51-79- tt ^- J- P- Vol. Ill (1909-10), pp. 94-177. 

XI Loc. cit. Dr Webb's work contains a bibliography to which reference may 
be made for a summary of the literature of this subject. 
§§ Hart and Spearman, B. J. P. Vol. v (1912-13), p. 52. 



104 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 2 

general factor: namely, that a single general factor enters into all 
mental qualities, while group factors, if they are present at all, are, in 
the case of sufficiently dissimilar qualities, insignificant in comparison 
with the single general factor. 

The methods of mathematical treatment which Galton first 
proposed to apply to biological investigations have, in the hands of 
Professor Karl Pearson and his collaborators, established a number 
of relations between physical characters of human beings. For 
example, Professor Pearson has shewn that the sons or daughters of 
a very large number of fathers (or mothers), all of whom exceed the 
average height of men (or women) by, say, six inches, will on the 
average exceed the average height by approximately one-half of that 
amount, namely three inches. The mathematical methods developed 
by Professor Pearson and those who have assisted him in laying the 
foundations of the science of biometry, have of late been applied to 
the investigation of relations between mental characters. Such a 
relation is measured* by means of the Bravais-Pearson coefficient of 
correlation, usually denoted by the letter r. When two variables 
increase or decrease in proportion, the correlation between them is 
said to be complete, and r = 1. When, however, there is merely a 
tendency for increase in one variable to be accompanied by increase 
in the other, then r becomes a fraction, which is smaller in proportion 
as the tendency becomes slighter. For example, in the case cited above 
of the correlation between the height of children and one of their 
parents, r = I nearlj^ When two variables are quite independent, 
y = o. When ability in one performance goes with inability in another, 
r becomes negative up to the limit of — if. 

Professor Spearman, in his original paper to which reference has 
already I been made, shewed that the correlations between the per- 
formances of a large number of persons in a set of sufficiently dissimilar 
mental tests tended, in the various cases which he examined, to be 
in a certain relation to one another. And he shewed that this relation 
— which he described as ' forming a hierarchy ' — would be accounted 
for by supposing that the correlations in question were wholly due to 

* li X and y are corresponding values of two variables whose Bravais-Pearson 
coefi&cient of correlation is r, and if x is measured from the mean of the x's and 

V from the mean of the y's, then r is defined by the equation r= , r_ 

where, as usual, 2 denotes a summation. 

f Cf. Hart and Spearman, loc. cit. p. 53. For further particulars of the 
mathematical theory ot correlation, see Introdwction to the Theory of Statifiics 
(191 1 ), by G. Udny Yule; or the chapters on correlation in Professor T. P. Nunn's 
The Teaching of Algebra and its companion work. A simple geometrical conception 
of correlation is explained below (p. 484) in Appendix B, § 9. % See above, p. 103. 



II. 7. 2 



WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 



105 



the presence of a single general factor in each of the qualities tested*. 
But so far the existence of such a single general factor had not been 
proved. 

In 1909 Mr Cyril Burt described experiments on two groups of 
Oxford schoolboys undertaken 'with a view to testing in practice 
the mathematical methods of Professor Spearman.' f Mr Burt 
calculated the correlations between the performances of his subjects 
in twelve different tests, which he classified as sensory, motor, sensory- 
motor, and association tests, together with one (the twelfth) test of 
voluntary attention |. Mr Burt's results were consistent with the 
view that all the correlations were due to the operation of one, and 
only one, general factor. The following tables, one for each group of 
boys, shew the observed correlations between the performances of 
the boys in that group when tested experimentally in each of the 
twelve different ways. The thirteenth test (Imputed Intelligence) 
shews the correlations between the boys' performances in the twelve 

* See Appendix B, § i. 

t Loc. cit. p. 94. 

X Mr Burt's tests were divided into five groups as follows: 



Lists of Tests 
I. Sensory Tests: 

( 1 ) Discrimination of two points 

upon the skin 

(2) Discrimination of lifted 

weights 

(3) Discrimination of pitch 

(4) Comparison of length of 

lines by eye 

II. Motor Tests: 

(5) Tapping 

(6) Card-dealing 

III. Sensori-Motor Tests: 

(7) Card-sorting 

(8) Alphabet finding 

IV. Association Tests: 

(9) Immediate retention of 

(a) Concrete words 

(b) Abstract words 

(c) Nonsense syllables 
(10) Mirror Test 



(11) Spot pattern Test 

V. Test of Voluntary Attention : 

(12) Dotting irregular dots 



Nature of process tested 



- Perceptual discrimination 



j- Simple reactions 



Reactions complicated by discrimination 
Reactions complicated W recognition 



Immediate memory 

Formation of associations during motive 
activity (progressive process of 'Trial 
and Error') 

Formation of associations during per- 
ceptual activity (progressive process 
of 'Apperception') 

Maximal effort of sustained attention 



io6 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION 



II. 7. 2 



experimental tests, and the degree of intelligence imputed to them 
by their Headmaster. The first group, to which Table I relates, 
consisted of thirty boys in the Oxford Central School ; and the second 
group, the corresponding correlations of whose performances in the 
several tests are shewn in Table II, consisted of thirteen boys belonging 
to the Oxford Preparatory School. All the boys of both groups were 
between the ages of 12 years 6 months and 13 years 6 months. The 
former school was a 'superior Elementary School' and the latter a 
' high class Preparatory School.' * Both were exclusively boys' schools. 
'In Social Status, the boys of the Elementary School were of the 
lower middle class, sons of local tradesmen, paying a fee oigd.a. week. 
The boys from the Preparatory School were being prepared for 
scholarships at one or other of the great Public Schools, and were in 
nearly every case sons of men of eminence in the intellectual world, 
that is to say, of Fellows of the Royal Society, University Professors, 
College Tutors and Bishops.... Within the two schools, however, the 
social status of the boys was unusually uniform.' f 

Table I. Hierarchy of Coefficients {Amalgamated Series). 
A. Elementary School. 



3 

Dotting 43 D. 

Apparatus: p <; 

Obs. coeff. — 
Theor. value { — 

Deviation J — 
P.e. § of coeff. — 

Alphabet: 

Obs. coeff. 77 

Theor. value 80 

Deviation 03 

P.e. of coeff. 05 

Sorting: 

Obs. coeff. 67 

Theor. value 73 

Deviation 06 

P.e. of coeff. 07 

Imputed 
Intelligence: 

Obs. coeff. 60 

Theor. value 72 

Deviation 12 
P.e. of coeff. 



J3 

77 
80 

03 

05 



74 
69 
05 
06 



61 
69 
08 



08 08 

* Loc. cit. p. 102. 
§ I.e. probable error: 



tiD <L> bo 

B 3 3 

O 3 

IT. h5 M 



67 

73 
06 
07 

74 
69 
05 
06 



60 

72 
12 
08 

61 
69 
08 



52 
62 



— 09 



Q 
69 
72 
03 
06 

66 
69 
03 
07 

72 
61 
II 
06 



52 — 44 

62 — 69 

10 — 16 

09 — 10 



57 
67 



59 
65 
06 
08 

45 
59 
14 



76 
58 
18 
05 



H 
57 
63 
06 



54 
60 
06 
09 

61 
54 
13 
08 



47 
53 
06 



50 
49 
01 
09 

29 
46 
17 



34 
42 
08 



67 
41 
26 
07 



52 
45 
07 
09 

52 
43 
09 
09 

52 
39 
13 
09 



40 
39 



c 

48 
33 
15 
09 

16 
32 
16 



14 

28 



29 



08 



H 
38 
28 



62 
26 
36 
07 



22 
24 
14 02 
12 II 



13 
23 



>> 
i-i 

o 
S 

20 

27 
07 

12 

31 
25 
06 



19 
23 
04 



16 
05 



07 
05 
02 



23 
04 

19 
19 



57 -13 
23 04 
34 17 
08 12 



I Loc. cit. p. 100. X See below, Appendix B, § 2, 

see below. Appendix B, § i . 



II. 7. 2 



WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 



107 



Table I — continued. 



Dealing: 


3 

■ S 13 

-M ft 
ft 


D 

ei 

ft 
< 


to 

a 

C/2 


3 3 
ft IJ 

6 3 


Q 



ft 

in 


ft 


s 

u 


c 
3 



3 




3 

H 


a 


.SP 


Obs. coeff, 
Theor. value 
Deviation 


69 
72 
03 


66 
69 
02 


72 
61 
II 


44 
60 
16 


— 


76 
58 
07 


47 
53 
12 


67 
41 
01 


40 

39 
05 


29 
28 

19 


13 
23 
00 


57 
23 
04 


-13 
04 
03 


P.e. of coeff. 


06 


07 


06 


09 


— 


10 


07 


II 


12 


10 


II 


12 


12 


Spot Pattern: 




























Obs. coeff. 
Theor. value 


57 
63 


53 
60 


61 

54 


47 
53 


65 
53 


I 


41 

48 


41 
36 


47 
34 


08 
25 


26 
20 


-05 
20 


22 
04 


Deviation 


06 


06 


07 


08 


12 


— 


07 


05 


13 


18 


06 


25 


18 


P.e. of coeff. 


08 


09 


08 


10 


08 


— 


10 


10 


10 


12 


II 


12 


12 


Tapping: 




























Obs. coeff. 
Theor. value 


57 
63 


53 
60 


61 

54 


47 
53 


65 
53 


41 
48 


z 


41 
36 


47 
34 


08 
25 


26 
20 


-05 
20 


22 
04 


Deviation 


06 


06 


07 


08 


12 


07 


— 


05 


13 


18 


06 


25 


18 


P.e. of coeff. 


08 


09 


08 


10 


08 


10 


— 


10 


10 


12 


II 


12 


12 


Mirror: 




























Obs. coeff. 
Theor. value 
Deviation 


50 
49 
01 


29 
46 
17 


34 
42 
08 


67 
41 
26 


40 
41 
01 


45 
37 
04 


45 
36 
05 


— 


34 
25 
09 


16 
19 
03 


08 
15 
07 


05 
15 
10 


-05 
03 
08 


P.e. of coeff. 


09 


II 


11 


17 


10 


10 


10 


— 


10 


12 


12 


12 


12 


Sound: 




























Obs. coeff. 
Theor. value 
Deviation 


52 
45 
07 


52 
43 
09 


52 
39 
13 


40 

39 
01 


34 
39 
05 


47 
35 
12 


47 
34 
13 


34 
25 
09 


— 


-07 
17 
24 


— 01 
14 
15 


01 
14 
13 


-13 
02 
15 


P.e. of coeff. 


09 


09 


09 


10 


17 


TO 


10 


12 


— 


12 


13 


12 


12 


Lines : 




























Obs. coeff. 


48 


16 


14 


29 


47 


25 


08 


16 


-07 


— 


26 


06 


19 


Theor. value 


33 


32 


28 


28 


28 


26 


26 


25 


17 


— 


10 


10 


02 


Deviation 


15 


16 


14 


01 


19 


01 


17 


03 


24 


— 


16 


04 


17 


P.e. of coeff. 


09 


12 


12 


08 


10 


II 


12 


12 


12 


— 


II 


12 


12 


Touch: 




























Obs. coeff. 


38 


62 


22 


13 


23 


03 


26 


08 


—01 


26 


— 


16 


29 


Theor. value 


28 


26 


24 


23 


23 


21 


20 


15 


14 


10 


— 


08 


01 


Deviation 


10 


36 


02 


10 


00 


18 


06 


07 


15 


16 


— 


08 


28 


P.e. of coeff. 


11 


07 


12 


12 


12 


12 


II 


12 


12 


II 


— 


12 


II 


Memory : 
Obs. coeff. 


20 


31 


19 


57 


19 


26 


-05 


05 


01 


06 


16 





05 


Theor. value 


27 


25 


23 


23 


23 


21 


20 


15 


12 


10 


18 


— 


01 


Deviation 


07 


06 


04 


34 


04 


05 


25 


10 


13 


04 


08 


— 


04 


P.e. of coeff. 


12 


10 


II 


10 


12 


II 


12 


12 


12 


12 


12 


— 


12 


Weight: 




























Obs. coeff. 


16 


07 


23 


-13 


01 


II 


22 


-05 


-13 


19 


29 


05 





Theor. value 


05 


05 


04 


04 


04 


04 


04 


03 


03 


03 


01 


01 


— 


Deviation 


II 


02 


19 


17 


03 


07 


18 


08 


15 


17 


28 


04 





P.e. of coeff. 


12 


12 


12 


12 


12 


12 


II 


12 


12 


12 


II 


12 






Average deviation =-100. 



Average p.e. = 'ioi. 



io8 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 2 

Table II. Hierarchy of Coefficients [Amalgamated Series). 
B. Preparatory School. 



Dotting 
Apparatus : 


■n 




"33 


1 


a 


CI, 


a 


60 

d 
H 


so 
.3 

u 




73 



CO 


tn 

.3 


bo 



3 

H 


60 

a 
13 

4) 

Q 


Obs. coeff. 


— 


84 


84 


71 


69 


62 


48 


73 


48 


25 


07 


03 


-03 


Theor. value 


— 


85 


80 


76 


70 


66 


66 


60 


48 


30 


14 


-07 


-13 


Deviation 


— 


01 


04 


05 


01 


04 


16 


13 


00 


14 


07 


10 


10 


P.e. of coeff. 


— 


06 


06 


10 


12 


12 


16 


10 


16 


19 


20 


20 


20 


Alphabet: 




























Obs. coeff. 


84 


— 


80 


48 


84 


67 


57 


76 


34 


22 


-14 


-28 


45 


Theor. value 


85 





78 


74 


68 


64 


64 


58 


51 


37 


14 


-07 


— 12 


Deviation 


01 


— 


02 


26 


16 


03 


07 


18 


17 


15 


28 


21 


57 


P.e. of coeff. 


06 


— 


07 


16 


06 


15 


14 


09 


18 


19 


20 


19 


16 


Imputed 




























Intelligence : 




























Obs. coeff. 


84 


80 


— 


54 


78 


75 


43 


56 


37 


17 


-19 


-06 


29 


Theor. value 


80 


78 


— 


70 


64 


60 


60 


55 


44 


35 


13 


-06 


— 12 


Deviation 


04 


02 


— 


16 


14 


15 


17 


01 


07 


18 


32 


00 


41 


P.e. of coeff. 


06 


07 


— 


14 


08 


09 


16 


14 


17 


20 


19 


20 


18 


Mirror: 




























Obs. coeff. 


71 


48 


54 


— 


43 


38 


75 


34 


57 


54 


44 


31 


-44 


Theor. value 


76 


74 


70 


— 


61 


58 


57 


52 


42 


34 


12 


-06 


— II 


Deviation 


06 


26 


16 


— 


18 


20 


18 


18 


15 


20 


32 


37 


33 


P.e. of coeff. 


10 


16 


14 


— 


16 


17 


09 


18 


14 


14 


16 


18 


16 


Memory: 




























Obs. coeff. 


69 


84 


78 


43 


— 


74 


54 


64 


17 


28 


-05 


-35 


03 


Theor. value 


70 


68 


64 


61 


— 


53 


53 


48 


39 


31 


II 


-06 


— 10 


Deviation 


01 


16 


14 


18 


— 


21 


01 


i6 


22 


03 


16 


29 


13 


P.e. of coeff. 


II 


16 


18 


16 


— 


09 


14 


II 


20 


19 


20 


18 


20 


Spot Pattern: 




























Obs. coeff. 


62 


67 


75 


38 


74 


— 


38 


51 


25 


34 


07 


-44 


19 


Theor. value 


66 


64 


60 


38 


53 


— 


50 


45 


36 


29 


II 


-05 


— 10 


Deviation 


04 


03 


15 


20 


21 


— 


12 


06 


II 


05 


04 


39 


29 


P.e. of coeff. 


12 


15 


09 


17 


09 


— 


17 


15 


19 


18 


20 


16 


19 


Tapping: 




























Obs. coeff. 


48 


57 


43 


75 


54 


38 


— 


48 


28 


44 


34 


07 


-31 


Theor. value 


66 


64 


60 


57 


53 


50 


— 


45 


36 


29 


II 


-05 


-09 


Deviation 


16 


07 


17 


18 


01 


12 


— 


03 


08 


15 


23 


12 


22 


P.e. of coeff. 


16 


14 


16 


09 


14 


17 


— 


16 


19 


17 


18 


20 


19 


Sorting: 




























Obs. coeff. 


73 


76 


56 


34 


64 


51 


48 


— 


38 


00 


— 22 


-14 


02 


Theor. value 


60 


58 


55 


52 


48 


45 


45 


— 


33 


27 


10 


-05 


-09 


Deviation 


13 


18 


01 


18 


16 


06 


03 


— 


05 


27 


32 


09 


II 


P.e. of coeff. 


09 


oS 


14 


18 


II 


15 


16 


— 


17 


20 


19 


16 


20 


Sotmd: 




























Obs. coeff. 


48 


34 


37 


57 


17 


25 


28 


38 


— 


07 


14 


17 


-17 


Theor. value 


48 


51 


44 


42 


39 


36 


36 


33 


— 


21 


08 


-04 


-07 


Deviation 


00 


17 


07 


15 


22 


II 


08 


05 


— 


14 


26 


21 


10 


P.e. of coeff. 


16 


18 


17 


14 


20 


19 


19 


17 


— 


20 


19 


20 


20 



II. 7. 2 



WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 



109 



Table II — continued. 



Lines : 


3 

■ s s 


0/ 

< 




u 




s 


a, 


0. 

ID 


6C 

a 
'a, 

TO 

H 


be 

a 


a 
§ 

C/3 



3 


j3 

ao 
■53 



§ 


Q 


Obs. coeff. 


25 


22 


17 


54 


28 


34 


44 


00 


07 


— 


35 


19 


-13 


Theor. value 


39 


37 


35 


34 


31 


29 


29 


27 


21 


— 


06 


-03 


-06 


Deviation 


14 


15 


18 


20 


03 


05 


15 


27 


14 


— 


29 


22 


07 


P.e. of coeff. 


19 


19 


20 


14 


19 


18 


17 


20 


20 


— 


18 


19 


20 


Weight: 




























Obs. coeff. 


07 ■ 


-14 


—10 


44 


-05 


07 


34 


— 22 


34 


35 


— 


38 


-35 


Theor. value 


14 


14 


13 


12 


II 


II 


II 


10 


08 


06 


— 


— 01 


—02 


Deviation 


07 


28 


32 


32 


16 


04 


23 


32 


26 


29 


— 


39 


33 


P.e. of coeff. 


20 


20 


19 


16 


20 


20 


18 


19 


19 


18 


— 


17 


18 


Touch: 




























Obs. coeff. 


03 ■ 


-28 


-06 


31 


-35 


-44 


07 


-14 


17 


19 


38 


— 


-48 


Theor. value- 


-07 - 


-07 


-06 - 


-06 


-06 


-05 


-05 


-05 


-04 


-03 


—01 


— 


01 


Deviation 


10 


21 


00 


37 


29 


39 


12 


09 


21 


32 


29 


— 


49 


P.e. of coeff. 


20 


19 


20 


18 


18 


i6 


20 


16 


20 


19 


17 


— 


15 


Dealing: 




























Obs. coeff. - 


-03 


45 


29 - 


-44 


03 


19 


-31 


02 


-17 


-13 


-35 


-48 


— 


Theor. value - 


-13 - 


-12 


—12 - 


-II 


— 10 


— 10 


-09 


-09 


-07 


-06 


—02 


—01 


— 


Deviation 


10 


57 


41 


33 


13 


29 


22 


II 


10 


07 


43 


39 


— 


P.e. of coeff. 


20 


16 


18 


16 


20 


19 


19 


20 


20 


20 


18 


15 


— 



Average deviatioa = -i65. 



Average p.e. =*i62. 



Mr Burt's discussion of the question how far the tabulated 
correlations satisfy the conditions for a hierarchy * is quoted below in 
Appendix B, § 2. His conclusion is that 'in this respect, the results 
of a wider application of the Test-methods confirm and extend the 
observations of Professor Spearman, who found in his own experi- 
ments "the range of the central function... so universal, and that of 
the specific functions so vanishingly minute." 'f 

Mr Burt's results thus confirm the earlier work of Professor 
Spearman; for they shew the same tendency of the correlations be- 
tween dissimilar mental tests to form a hierarchy! . Mr Burt's experi- 
ments were, therefore §, consistent with Professor Spearman's theory 
that the correlations between performances in the several tests were 
mainly, if not entirely, due to the operation of a single general factor. 
But the existence of the single general factor, while consistent with 
the facts, and particularly with the new facts obtained by Mr Burt, 
was still not proved. 

* See above, p. 104; and Appendix B, § i. 

f Burt, loc. cit. p. 164. 

I Or, in other words, to satisfy equations (i) in § i of Appendix B. 

§ See § I of Appendix B. 



no THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 2 

It has, however, since been shewn * that, where the conditions for 
a hierarchy! are satisfied by the correlations between a set of mental 
tests, the measure of each of the qualities tested is compounded, 
according to the vector law| (which enables a short distance at sea, 
in whatever direction, to be compounded of so much north, or south, 
with so much east, or west), of a single general factor § common to 
all the qualities and of a specific factor (independent both of the 
single general factor and ot the other specific factors) belonging to that 
quality alone, no group factors being present. 

It follows that, if the correlation between Mr Burt's tests had 
completely satisfied the conditions for a hierarchy, it would be 
possible to assert that a single general factor and specific factors, 
but no group factors ||, entered into each of the correlated qualities 
tested. Since, however, the conditions for a hierarchy were not 
completely satisfied by the correlations between Mr Burt's tests, but 
were only satisfied within the limits of probable error involved, we can 
assert no more than that a general factor was dominant, and group 
factors, if present at all, were comparatively insignificant, in each of 
the tests in question. In other words, Mr Burt's investigation proves 
the tendency of the measures of dissimilar mental qualities to be 
functions of a single general factor and specific factors only, without 
group factors^. 

Two years after the publication of Mr Burt's paper. Professor 
Spearman and Dr Hart proposed** a new criterion for the existence 
of a (single) general factor; namely that, in a correlation table such 
as those ft published by Mr Burt, the correlation between every pair 
of columns should, with proper allowance for sampling errors J J, be + 1, 

* Garnett, Proc. R. S. (A), Vol. 96 (1919), PP- 99-102. 
■f Equation (i) in § i of Appendix B, below. 

X Mathematically expressed in equation (4) of § 3 of Appendix B, below. 
§ Defined in § 3 of Appendix B, below. See footnote § on p. 477. 
1 1 A single general factor and specific factors are defined in the footnote § on 
p. 477 (§ 3 of Appendix B); and group factors in footnote * on p. 476 (§ i of 
Appendix B). 

^ See Appendix B, § 4 and § 5. 
** Spearman and Hart, B. J. P. Vol. v, p. 56. 
ff See Tables I and II above, pp. 106 to 109. 

II Spearman and Hart's formula for column correlation, corrected for errors 
of sampling, is 

„, 5 (pxa Pxb) -(n - \)r„i (Txa <Txb 

a ab — 



in which the 's are the correlation coefficients r measured from the mean of the 
column, and the o-'s are the probable errors of the r's divided by 0-6745. The bar 
indicates mean values. The authors decided that, for the purpose of calculating 
a 'correlation between columns,' only those pairs of columns could be used in 
which S (p^) is at least twice the correction (w - i) o-^. 



II. 7. 2] WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY iii 

or, as Dr Webb* pointed out afterwards, — i. Professor Spearman 
and Dr Hart shewed that the average correlation between columns 
in such tables should be approximately zero if, as (according to Binet) 
Thomdike formerly maintained, those are right for whom I' esprit ne 
serait qu'une collection heteroclite defacultes qui sont comme juxtaposees 
mais restent rigoreusement independantes f ; and that it should possess 
a low negative value if Thorndike's newer view of 'levels,' or the 
almost universal belief in ' types,' | is correct. When Dr Hart and 
Professor Spearman confronted these three theories by the facts, and 
applied their fornmla to the five largest pairs and the five smallest 
pairs (or as many as were up to the correctional standard §) of columns 
in fourteen published tables of correlation coefficients dating from 
various periods up to thirty years back, they found that 'from be- 
ginning to end, the correlation between columns is positive and very 
high; the mean is almost complete + r. This is just the value demanded 
by the theory of a [single] General Factor.' || Dr Webb, in his essay 
on Character and Intelligence, to which reference has just been made*, 
prepared a further correlation table of five columns (and five rows), 
the results of five examination tests set to ninety-six training college 
students. Nine out of the ten pairs of columns were up to the correc- 
tional standard of Professor Spearman and Dr Hart, and the applica- 
tion of their formula to those nine pairs yielded i-02 ± o-o8 as the 
average correlation between columns. ' This result,' says Dr Webb, ' is 
an additional item of evidence in support of the Theory of a General 
Factor.... It takes its place in the huge array of evidence collected by 
Professor Spearman from experimental tests by many investigators — 
the steadiness of results being such as to rival the niceties which 
physical measurements reveal. It should be remembered that the raw 
material for our own (comparatively small) contribution to this total 
result consisted of test-papers numbering nearly ten thousand.'^ 

* Loc. cit. above, footnote %, p. 98. 

t Quoted from Binet by Hart and Spearman, loc. cit. p 51. 

I When 'the very numerous supporters of mental "types "...classify people 
as "visual," "auditory," "motor," etc., or in any other more ingenious manner, 
they evidently imply that the different kinds of visual abilities tend to go together 
(except in so far as their "types" merely refer to habits and preferences, not 
abilities). It is interesting to notice that even Thomdike appears to be surrendering 
his former belief in the complete independence of all mental powers, and to be 
coming round to an opinion of the same class as those just mentioned. In place 
of "faculties" or "types" he introduces the more cautious term of "levels"; 
these he declares to be three in number, namely, sensitivity, association, and 
dissociation; he says that performances correlate highly with those belonging 
to the same "level," lowly with those belonging to a different one.' (Hart and 
Spearman, loc. cit. p. 52.) § See footnote %% on p. no. 

!| Loc. cit. p. 60. ^ Loc. cit. p. 37, 



112 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 2 

It is easy to see that, if a number of correlated variables, each of 
which measures some mental quality*, are dependent upon a single 
general factor (distributed according to the normal law) and upon 
specific factors only, and if the correlations between these variables 
are arranged to form a correlation table, then the correlations between 
every pair of columns will be ± if. The result obtained by Professor 
Spearman and Dr Hart, and afterwards confirmed by Dr Webb, is 
therefore consistent with Professor Spearman's theory of a single 
general factor as we have formulated it in mathematical terms J. 

But the existence of a single general factor as defined above, while 
it is sufficient to account for the results obtained by Professor Spearman 
and Dr Hart, and afterwards by Dr Webb, may not be necessary to 
account for those results. An investigation § undertaken by the 
present writer has, however, shewn that if the correlation between 
every pair of columns in a correlation table, representing the results 
of a large number of sufficiently dissimilar mental tests, be ± i, the 
measures of the correlated qualities can be expressed || in terms of 
a single general factor, g, and specific factors only. There will be no 
group factors. 

Since, however, the 'correlation between columns' condition — 
namely, that the correlation between every pair of columns in the 
correlation tables should be ± i — were not completely, but only 
approximately, satisfied in the mental tests examined by Professor 
Spearman, Mr Burt and Dr Webb, and in the case of all the mental 
tests carried out during a period of thirty years preceding the publica- 
tion of the paper by Professor Spearman and Dr Hart, we can assert 
no more than that a general factor was dominant and that group 
factors, if present at all, were comparatively insignificant in each of 
the tests belonging to sets of tests in which the correlated qualities 
were sufficiently dissimilar. 

Our conclusion may be alternatively expressed in words that differ 
but Httle from those ^ in which Professor Spearman first described 

* And is therefore, we may take it, distributed according to the normal 
probability law. See Appendix B, § i, below. 

f This follows at once from footnote * to p. 476 in § i of Appendix B, below. 

I See § 5 of Appendix B. 

§ Garnett, Proc. R. S. (A), Vol. 96 (1919), pp. 102-5. See also § 6 of Appendix 
B, below. II By means of equations (4) in § 3 of Appendix B (p 477). 

^ The words used by Professor Spearman in summarising the conclusions of 
his first paper (loc. cit. p. 284) are as follows: 'The above and other analogous 
observed facts indicate that all branches of intellectual activity have in common one 
fundamental function {or group of functions) [ — our single general factor — ], 
whereas the remaining or specific elements of the activity seem in every case to be 
wholly different from that in all the others.' 



II. 7. 2 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 113 

his theory of the single general factor; for we can now say that all 
sufficiently dissimilar branches of intellectual activity tend to have in 
common one fundamental function, the single general factor, whereas 
the remaining or specific factor of the activity seems in every case to be 
wholly different from that in all the others and from the general factor. 

'So far,' to quote again from Dr Hart and Professor Spearman*, 
'all is plain sailing enough. The trouble is not so much in proving 
the existence of the General Factor as in revealing its precise nature.' 

Now we have already f observed that power to reinforce excite- 
ment in particular systems of higher level arcs and so to concentrate 
attention on corresponding thought-activities — a power which William 
James, Dr McDougall, Dr Morton Prince, Dr Ballard, and others 
have identified with Will — would constitute such a general factor. 
Indeed, all the available evidence goes to shew that, if this general 
factor, Will, exists, it must be the same as the single general factor, 
which we shall denote by 'g,' and its measure by g. 

Confirmatory evidence that Will is identical with that general 
ability whose measure is g is furnished by Mr Burt's investigations. 
Thus his results proved that the greater the ability (of the boys he 
tested) to concentrate attention on some new thing, the greater also 
was the measure of their general factor, ' g.' % This was not a question 
of the boys' zeal or goodwill §. Their ^ was great when they possessed 
great ability to concentrate on something to which they desired to 
attend. Thus, the ' dotting apparatus ' heads the hierarchies in both 
Tables I and II || because, in the case of both schools, the boys' 
performances in the dotting test correlated, on the average, most 
highly with their performances in the other tests. This '"Dotting 
Apparatus" is a machine for testing and graphically recording con- 
tinued maximal voluntary concentration of attention. The method 
was devised by Dr McDougall ; and an improved form of his apparatus 
has been suggested by Dr Rivers^.... In an experiment conducted by 

* B. J. P. Vol. V, p. 65. t See above, p. loi. 

X Ability to concentrate attention as measured by the dotting test has a high 
correlation with g, according to Table I and Table II above. If suffixes d, a, s, 
indicate the dotting, alphabet and spot pattern tests, the formula (see below, 

footnote * to p. 115) y^cLg = ^ ' ^ gives r^g = '82 (in Elementary School) and = -go 

ran 

(in Preparatory School). 

§ Burt, loc. cit. p. 166. II See above, pp. 106 to 109. 

^ The earlier form of the same apparatus is described in the B. J. P. Vol. 11, 
No. 4, p. 435. W. McDougall, 'On a New Method for the Study of Concurrent 
Mental Operations and of Mental Fatigue (Preliminary Communication).' A 
description of Dr Rivers' improvements will be found in his book on The Influence 
of Alcohol and Other Drugs on Fatigue, Appendix II, p. 123. (Quoted from Burt, 
loc. cit. p. 153.) 

G. E. 8 



114 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 2 

means of this machine the task of the reagent * is to mark with a pen- 
cil or stylographic pen an irregular zigzag row of dotsf , lithographed 
in red upon a paper tape, carried past the field of view at an adjustable 
speed by a small wooden drum rotated by clock work.... The row of 
dots upon the paper band (see Fig. 7) is carefully designed so that 
the succession shall be as irregular as possible, the horizontal distance, 
however, of each dot from the last (i.e. the interval in the direction 
of motion) being always 5 mm., the extreme lateral deviation of the 
dots being 15 mm., and no dot deviating by more than 7 mm. from 
the line of its predecessor. Sitting at the table, resting his wrist upon 



® O ® o© 0® 

Fig. 7. Portion of Tape to be marked in Dotting Test. 

the desk, the reagent watches and marks the dots as they appear 
through the window, and are carried past towards his left.... Through- 
out the marking of a series moving at a given rate the subject's 
task is one of uniform difficulty, and the difficulty of the task depends 
upon the velocity at which the tape of paper moves. As he has the 
same fraction of a second for the accomplishment of each hit, he has 
to make a rhythmical series of strokes with the pencil; but as the 
position of each dot is unknown till it is seen, each stroke has to be 
aimed. This requires a sustained effort of attention, the degree of 
effort depending upon the rate of the rhythm of the strokes, and 
therefore measured by the rate of movement of the dots upon the 
paper tape. When marked, the paper furnishes a permanent graphic 
record of the maintenance of the effort, failure of continuity of 
attention being indicated by the presence of pencil-marks unaimed, 
or of red dots unmarked.' ' In the present investigation,' adds Mr Burt, 
'the measurement sought was the maximum rate at which each boy 
could mark the dots correctly.... The speed at which he first made 
three or more omissions in ten seconds... was accepted as the upper 
limit of his power of sustained attention.' J 

Now if g measures the general factor which, because of the 
tendency of the correlations to form a hierarchy, tends to enter, 
according to the vector law in Appendix B, into each of the qualities 

* I.e. person undergoing test. f The circles in Fig. 7. 

I Loc. cit. pp. 153-5. 



II. 7. 2 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 115 

tested, then 'g,' as Mr Burt says of voluntary attention, 'is the capa- 
city, common to all the functions tested, which enters most into the 
processes involved.' We have therefore a further reason for identifying 
g with the measure of power to concentrate attention by an effort of 
Will. 

We have just noticed another reason: the fact that the hierarchies 
were headed by the dotting test, for the successful performance of 
which power to concentrate attention was most required, not only 
in the opinion of the boys tested but also in that of the psychologists 
interrogated. But, since the dotting test headed the hierarchies, it was, 
of all the tests, that for the successful performance of which a high 
degree of 'g' was most necessary. For its position at the head of the 
hierarchies implies that, of all the tests, it has the highest correlation 
with the general factor, 'g'*. 

Still further evidence of the identity of 'g' with power to concen- 
trate attention by an effort of Will was obtained in the course of 
Mr Burt's experiments. He found, for example, that correlations of 
performances in motor tests — e.g. card dealing — with imputed in- 
telligence are reduced, abolished, or inverted when motor rapidity is 
due to frequent practice. On this he comments: 

Thus so far as motor rapidity is a function of temporary ' facilitation ' 
of the paths of neural discharge it appears also to be a function of in- 
telligence f, while so far as it is a function of permanent ' canalisation ' J 
of those paths it [is] but slightly or inversely related to intelligence. 
Facilitation, however, is a function of operative attention; while canalisa- 
tion, though due to the operation of attention in the past, corresponds with 
diminution or absence of attention, as the adaptations of the past become 
the habits of the future §. 

Another indication of the close connexion between 'g,' the general 
factor, and capacity for voluntarily concentrating attention was 

* For, denoting the various tests hy a, b, ..., s, t, ... and supposing the whole 
correlation between performances in any two to be due to a general factor g, we 
have (according to footnote * on p. 476 in § i of Appendix B, below): 

^bB ~ rbg v,g ~ rig ~ Vbt 
In Tables I and II these equations are only approximately satisfied by the 
observed values of the correlation coefficients. But the deviations are in both 
directions, so that the 

mean value of rat for different values oi s _rag 
mean value of rj, for different values of s ^ 7^] ^-Pproxaiiately. 
It follows that, if the dotting test be denoted by d and heads the hierarchy 
because the mean value y^, (5 denoting any other test) is greatest, r^g will also be 
greatest : dotting will have the highest correlation vnth g. 

t Cf. above, p. 99. { See above, p. 43. § Loc. cit. p. 136. 



ii6 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 2 

afforded by Mr Burt's memory test. It will be observed, on reference 
to Tables I and II*, that the memory test occupies a much higher 
position in the Preparatory School hierarchy (where it appears among 
the association tests), than in the Elementary vSchool hierarchy 
(where it falls in among the sensory tests) . It follows that the memory 
test had a considerably higher correlation with 'g ' in the first case than 
in the second. Observation of the boys when performing the testf, 
and an inspection of their papers, suggested the explanation. 'The 
Elementary boys,' instead of reproducing the words in the correct 
order, 'often wrote down the last two or three as they were ringing 
in their ears, or reproduced the column in inverted order, and, in 
endeavouring to complete the number of words, commonly waited for 
the missing word to "recur spontaneously " ; whereas the Preparatory 
boys seldom wrote the words in reversed or inaccurate sequence, and, 
on forgetting, muttered the words they had retained in their proper 
order, in the hope of the chain of associations suggesting the missing 
link.' J In fact, the Preparatory boys appear to have made, on the 
whole, greater efforts to concentrate attention on this test than were 
made by the Elementary group. If 'g' is to be identified with ability 
to concentrate attention, the higher correlation of memory with 'g ' at 
the Preparatory School is at once explained. 

After reviewing all his evidence § on the nature of the general 
factor, 'g,' Mr Burt writes: 

We have seen throughout that the greater the change, and the greater 
the complexity, and the greater the novelty involved in the task performed, 
the greater also {ceteris paribus) is the Imputed Intelligence [and therefore || 

* See above, pp. io6 to 109. 

f Each boy was shewn (and at the same time read and heard), one at a time, 
a series of monosyllabic words. He was then asked to write these words down in 
their original order. 

X Burt, loc. cit. p. 167. He adds: 'Thus, so far as memory implies mere reten- 
tiveness of sensory images, it seems to bear little relation to intelligence; so far 
as memory implies organisation of new associations, it seems to bear a high relation 
to intelligence.' 

§ This evidence is supplemented below by an investigation in § 8 of Ap- 
pendix B. And the evidence there obtained from Dr Webb supports Mr Burt's 
evidence. 

II Because, owing to the conditions for a hierarchy being approximately 
satisfied by Mr Burt's correlations, the measure of imputed intelligence is related 
to g approximately according to equations (4) in § 3 of Appendix B. Now 
variation of imputed intelligence with degree of excellence in the several experi- 
mental tests cannot be due to variations of the specific factor in imputed intelli- 
gence; for that specific factor is altogether independent of the measures of per- 
formance in any of the twelve tests in question. This variation of imputed 
intelligence is therefore due mainly to variations of g. (Since these equations are 
only approximately true in this case, the variation in question is mainly due to 
variations of g, but may also depend, to a comparatively insignificant extent, upon 



II. 7. 2 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 117 

also the 'g '] of the performer. To relative novelty all the other attributes 
are probably secondary. Thus high intelligence [and therefore, as we said, 
high 'g '] seems to mean high capacity for continually systematising mental 
behaviour by forming new psycho-physical co-ordinations, older co- 
ordinations being retained, so that newer co-ordinations bring with them 
increased complexity and incessant change. In such progressively integra- 
tive actions of the mind the efficient and directive agent is attentive con- 
sciousness. And in this sense we may agree that so-called 'Voluntary' 
Attention is, of all recognised psychological processes, the essential factor 
in General Intelligence*. 

Mr Burt's conclusion that 'voluntary' attention is the essential 
factor in 'general intelligence' brings him into line with Binet, who 
believed the central factor to be 'voluntary' attention, and with 
Wundtj, who 'would make attention, the very essence of intellectual 
power.' I 

Our position is then as follows: we have shewn§ that if human 
souls exist and are able, bj^ an effort of Will, to influence thought and 
conduct — a hypothesis which we are about to formulate in our fourth 
law of thought — the measure of a person's will-power, or in other 
words the degree in which he is able, by an effort of Will, to influence 
his conduct (including, for example, his performances in mental tests), 
must constitute a general factor. We have also found evidence || of the 
existence of one and only one general factor, measured by g, in large 
numbers of tests of dissimilar mental qualities. The a priori prob- 
ability that these two general factors — power to concentrate attention 
by an effort of Will on the one hand, and, on the other, the general 
factor whose measure is g — are identical, is further strengthened by 
our investigation in § 8 of Appendix B and has been further increased 
by Mr Burt's evidence^ that so-called 'voluntary attention' is of all 
recognised psychological processes the essential constituent of the 
general factor whose measure is g. Indeed, all the facts that we have 
examined are consistent with the view that g measures power to 
concentrate attention by an effort of Will ; or, briefly, that g measures 
will-power. This theory thus resumes all the facts and is inconsistent 
with none of them. Pending further evidence we shall therefore 
assume that g is the measure of Will. 

variations of group factors.) We conclude that when Mr Burt, in the above quota- 
tion, wrote 'the greater also (ceteris paribus) is the Imputed Intelligence of the 
performer' he might equally truly have written 'the greater also {ceteris paribus) 
is the 'g' of the performer.' 

* Loc. cit. p. 169. 

t Cf. W. Brown, loc. cit. p. 89, and C. Burt, /. E. P. Vol. i (191 1), p. 93- 

X Spearman, Am. J. P. Vol. xv (1904), p. 208. 

§ See above, p. loi. || See above, p. 113. ^ See pp. 113 et seq. 



ii8 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 2 

Dr Hart and Professor Spearman have, however, taken a different 
view of the nature of 'g.' In their view the general factor consists of 
a common fund of energy; they add that 'explanation by "attention" 
seems inadequate.'* They point out that, as Mr Burt's and other 
investigations have shewn, the general factor enters most into those 
performances which require most intellectual effort. Wherever a per- 
formance is mechanized by habit, correlation with g' tends to disappear. 
Thus 'of all the features invariably attending the mechanization of 
any activity, none is more remarkable than the way in which it 
ceases to interfere with other simultaneous activities.' ] They argue that 
'if the non-mechanized activities are thus distinguished by their acute 
competition with one another, they must be competing for something; 
if the enhancement of any one such activity can only occur at the 
expense of all the others, we can scarcely escape the conclusion that 
all these manifestations of energy derive — to some extent, at least — 
from a general common fund.' X But if, as Burt, Binet and others have 
supposed, the general factor measures ability to concentrate attention, 
or (what amounts to the same thing) to reinforce the excitement in 
any particular system of higher level arcs, it would still be true that 
the concentration of activity in one such system could only occur at 
the expense of all others. For, if we suppose that the Will sufficiently 
reinforces the excitement in any given neurogram A, then, by our 
third law§, A tends to drain the excitement from any other active 
higher level arc; or, to use Professor Spearman's phrase, A drains the 
whole ' intellective energy ' available at the moment. Now, the amount 
of excitement so drained, the measure of the general common fund 
of intellective energy, may, so far as we yet know, vary in the same 
individual from one moment to another far more than it varies at 
the same moment from one individual to another. We cannot, there- 
fore, be sure that the ' fund ' is capable of characterising the individual || 
as the general factor does. We fall back then on the other view accord- 
ing to which the general factor measures the power to reinforce 
excitement in the first instance, rather than the very variable amount 
of energy drained in consequence of this initial reinforcement. 



* B. J. P. Vol. V, p. 79. 

f Loc. cit. pp. 69, 70. 

% Loc. cit. p. 70. See also below, p. 226. 

§ See above, p. 79. 

II It is possible that a long series of tests applied to an individual at many 
different times might afford a measure of the average level of his available energy ; 
but no such tests appear to have been applied in the investigations which have 
furnished the evidence for the General Factor. 



II. 7. 2 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 119 

It is, as we have seen*, dissimilar mental qualities that tend to 
manifest the single general factor, 'g,' with specific factors but without 
group factors. When, however, tests of very similar qualities, such 
for example as 'abihty to translate Latin' and 'knowledge of Latin 
grammar' are in question, we can no longer be sure that the measure 
of each quality can be expressed in terms of g and specific factors 
onlyf. Indeed, the absence of a single general factor within the 
meaning of our definition J — or, in other words, the inevitable 
presence of group factors — when the tests relate to a set of similar 
qualities, has been repeatedly mentioned throughout the literature of 
this subject, beginning with Professor Spearman's paper of 1904 §. 

Suppose then that a set of tests is concerned with similar qualities. 
The measure of each of these qualities, if considered with dissimilar 
qualities, could be approximately expressed || in terms of g and a 
specific factor; and it could be completely expressed in a form^ in 
which g and a specific factor were dominant but in which group 
factors were also present to a comparatively insignificant extent. 
When, therefore, a set of similar tests is in question, it is still convenient 
to express the measures of the qualities tested in terms of g, among 
other factors. But then these other factors ** will include group factors 
that are no longer insignificant. 

Two such group factors have been described: the first by Dr Webb 
and the second by the present writer. Both will concern us in the 
sequel. Dr Webb's factor is closely connected with purpose and we 
shall discuss it in the next chapter. But something may conveniently 
be said here about the other group factor. Cleverness. 

§ 3. Cleverness, a group factor in intellectual qualities. 

In his paper on ' Character and Intelligence,' to which reference has 
already ft been made, Dr Webb describes an investigation of forty- 
eight mental quahties J|. The subjects of his enquiry were ninety-eight 
men students (average age twenty-one) at a Training College during 

* On p. 113 above. See also Appendix B, §§ 6 and 7. 

•f Cf. p. 112 above. % In § 3 of Appendix B: see footnote § to p. 477. 

§ Loc. cit. p. 273. Cf. also Dr Webb, loc. cit. p. 53 (first line). 
1 1 By means of equation (4) in § 3 of Appendix B. 
^ See equation (7) in § 7 of Appendix B. 

** Viz. Zj, z^, etc. in equation (7) of Appendix B. The coefficients (w's) of the 
^'s are now — i.e. in the case of g's that measure similar qualities — significant. 
It See above, p. 98. 

XX The following paragraphs — as far as p. 127 below and including § 9 and § 10 
of Appendix B — are taken, with minor changes, from pp. 349-359 of a paper by 
the present writer entitled 'General Ability, Cleverness and Purpose,' published 
in the B. J. P. for May, 1919. 



I20 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 3 

the last six months of their second year of training (January- July, 
1912), and a similar group of ninety-six students during the corre- 
sponding period of the following year (January-Juh^ 1913). Br Webb 
also investigated a similar number of mental qualities of four groups 
of London schoolboys, with whom we shall be only once again con- 
cerned*. Of the students' forty-eight mental qualities investigated, 
forty- three were estimated by pairs of prefects who acted as judges; 
to each pair a group of twenty (or nineteen) students was assigned f. 
The forty-three mental qualities estimated by the prefects included 
degree of sense of Humour (No. 8 in Table III on p. 126 below) and 
two described by Dr Webb as intellectual qualities, namely, Quickness 
of apprehension (No. 35) and Originality of ideas (No. 38). 

Among the five qualities not estimated by the prefects, two were 
objectively measured, namely Examinational Ability and Professor 
Spearman's single general factor whose measure is gX. The manner in 
which 'g' was measured is fully described in Dr Webb's paper. 
Following Dr Hart and Professor Spearman, Dr Webb described 'g' 
as a ' General Factor of Intellective Energy.' But Dr Webb produced 
no additional evidence for regarding g a.s a. measure of intellective 
energy rather than as a measure of power of voluntarily concentrating 
nervous energy; or, what amounts to the same thing, of voluntarily 
concentrating attention; or, in short, of Will. 

The condition that must be satisfied in order that the measures 
of three or more qualities may be expressed in terms of (the measures 
of) two independent qualities, just as short distances at sea, whatever 
their direction, may be expressed § as so much east or (west) and so 
much north (or south), has been investigated ||. It has been shewn ^ 
that, among the qualities examined by Dr Webb, the correlations 
between the three qualities 'g,' Humour and Originality satisfy this 
condition** within the limits of probable errorf f , while the correlations 

* On pp. 158, 159 below. 

■f The measurements of the qualities were so chosen as to give the same 
constant (standard deviation) to the frequency distribution of each. See § i of 
Appendix B. 

J It will be remembered that g, like the measures of the other qualities with 
which we are concerned, is distributed according to the normal law and may- 
have any value from - 00 to +00, its mean value being zero. We continue (see 
p. 113) to write 'g' in place of 'General Ability' or 'the quality of which the 
measure is g.' That quality we have identified with Will. 

§ By means of the equation r = x cos 8 +y sin d, where r is the distance 
measured in a direction making an angle d ( =tan~^y/.r) north of east and where 
X is the distance east and y the distance north, so that x and y are two independent 
measures. Cf. footnote f. P- 127 below. 11 See § 9 of Appendix B. 

^ Garnett, loc. cit. {Proc. R. S.), p. 102. 
** Equation (10) in § 9 of Appendix B. ff See § i of Appendix B 




II. 7. 3 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 121 

of Quickness with any pair of the other three quaUties very nearly 
do so; so that ' g,' as measured experimentally, together with Humour 
and Originality, as estimated in a very large number of cases by 
Dr Webb's collaborators, is compounded of two, and only two, 
independent factors, while Quickness consists almost, if not quite, 
of some combination of the same independent factors. It further 
appeared that, if g were taken as one of the two independent factors 
and measured east, the direction in which the other qualities would 
be measured would be (in the case of Humour) approximately north 
by west and (in the case of Originality and 
Quickness) approximately north-north-east, 
half east*. We may therefore construct a 
diagram (Fig. 8) by drawing lines Og, Oh, Oo 
in one plane, making these angles with each 
other. And we may add to the diagram 
another line Oq, very nearly coincident with 
Oof. 

If the training college students who 
formed the subjects of Dr Webb's investi- 
gation constitute a fair sample of adult Englishmen, the 'g,' sense 
of Humour, Originality, and (probably) Quickness of apprehension 
of any Englishman can be represented by a single point {P, say) 
on the plane of the diagram— the 'intellectual plane,' as it has been 
called; for if P be determined so that the projection of OP on any 
two of the axes, Og, Oq, Oo or Oh (i.e. the distance from to P 
measured in any two of these directions) measures the corresponding 
two qualities of the subject in question, it follows | that the degrees 
in which the same subject possesses the remaining two qualities will 
be measured by the projections of OP on the remaining two axes (i.e. 
by the distance from to P measured in these other two directions) ; 
and the proportion of Englishmen whose intellectual qualities — if 
for the moment we may confine this term to the four qualities just 
named — are represented by points lying within any small area 8.4 can 
be calculated§. If e measures the radius from to S^, so that e 

* The actual angles are: 

gOh = cos-i y^^ - cos-i ( - -17) = 100° 
hOo — cos-i Vho — cos-i ( -79) = 38° 
oOg = cos-^ r„g — cos-i ( .^y) _ 52° 
f The correlation coefficient between Quickness and Originality given in Dr 
Webb's table is ^50 = 1-04. 

{ See § 9 of Appendix B (p. 484, below). 

§ The calculation (Garnett, Proc. R. S., loc. cit. pp. 108, 109) shews that this 
proportion will be numerically equal to the volume of a cylinder having its axis 



122 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 3 

measures the degree in which the subjects represented by points in 
SA are exceptional, the result of the calculation shews* that the number 
of individuals represented by points in SA depends only on e and is 
independent of the orientation of the radius joining to 8^. 

With a view to determining the nature of some two independent 
qualities, or factors, which, combined in different proportions, make 
up each of the four intellectual qualities, ' g,' Humour, Originality and 
Quickness, we may choose Og as one axis. What, then, is the other 
axis, represented by a line Oc at right angles to Og? Evidently, since 
the Humour axis makes with it an angle of onlj' some io°, it is very 
nearly identical with the axis of Humour. 

Now Dr McDougall has suggested that the process of ' reproduction 
by similars,' or, as Bainj called it, 'association by similarity,' is due 
to ' a partial identity of the complex neural systems involved in the 
perception of ...two objects. Each system consists of many sub-systems, 
and one or more of these sub-systems is common to the two. When 
the one system is excited, its excitement spreads, not, as is most 
commonly the case, through some association-path previously 
established by temporal contiguity, but from the sub-system, which 
forms also a part of another system, radiates itself through that 
other system. In the commonplace type of mind this process com- 
paratively rarely occurs. It would seem that in the brains of such 
persons neural systems tend to become circumscribed and individual- 
ised, whereas in a higher type of brain the neural systems are more 
complexly interwoven, sub-systems becoming freely associated with 
many principal systems. In a brain so constituted reproduction of 
similars will frequently occur, causing the dull chain of simple red- 
integration, the serial reproduction of impressions associated by 
temporal contiguity, to be broken across. The possessor of a brain so 
constituted will never be a commonplace person ; he may be a crank 
or an original thinker, or merely a wit.' J 

There is no evident reason why such a constitution of brain should 
have anything to do with capacity voluntarily to concentrate atten- 
tion, the capacity which Binet and others have identified with the 

perpendicular to SA, its base on 8A, and bounded at its other extremity by the 
surface 

I -J^jx^ + y".) I -ii 
2 = 5 e 2(7- = 5 e 20-2 

where x and y are the measures of the two independent variables of which each 
of the four quaUties is compounded, and where f^=x^ +r^. 

* Since the equation in the last footnote is independent of the particular 
axes chosen. t Cf. W. James, Principles of Psychology, Vol. i, p. 578. 

I Physiological Psychology, p. 139. 



II. 7. 3 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 123 

quality whose measure is g. Now the quality independent of 'g' for 
which we are seeking is very closely connected with Wit or Humour, 
and also closely connected with Originality * . Let us call it Cleverness. 
Then Cleverness is defined as a quahty which is independent oi 'g' 
but which, combined with 'g' in different proportions, wholly con- 
stitutes Humour or Originahty, and wholly or mainly constitutes 
Quickness of apprehension. Being closely connected with Humour 
and with Originality, Cleverness as thus defined is also closely con- 
nected with the form of brain constitution described by Dr McDougall, 
in the passage we have quoted. Moreover, so far as we can see, this 
form of brain constitution, hke Cleverness as just defined, is inde- 
pendent of 'g.' We have therefore grounds for identifying it with 
cleverness as generally understood. 

Let us now consider our diagram (Fig. 8) in the Hght of this 
suggestion. 

Still having regard only to the five intellectual qualities named in 
the diagram, we observe that people may be intellectually exceptional 
in any number of different wa5^s : the radius from to the small area 
SA, while remaining of length e, may make any angle 6 with any one 
of the fixed axes, say Og. If e remain large and 6 increase, we start 
with men having great 'g' — great 'General Abihty'f; or, as we have 
said, great Will-power, great power of concentrating attention — but 
only average Cleverness. Such men will, according to the diagram, 
possess much more than average Originahty and Quickness, but less 
than the average sense of Humour t . As 6 increases, e remaining con- 
stant, 8A will come to Oq and soon after to Oo, when 6 is about 60° §. 
When, therefore, for a given degree of intellectual exceptionahty. 
Quickness or Originahty is greatest. Cleverness is about VS times as 
great as 'g,' while sense of Humour is well above the average. As 
6 continues to increase, the rotating radius brings SA to Oc. Then 
Cleverness is at a maximum (e being given) ; sense of Humour is 
nearly at a maximum, for the angle cOh is only about 10°; Originality 
and Quickness are much above the average; but Abihty {'g') is only 
equal to the average. Finally, when SA comes to he on Oh (so that 
sense of Humour, or Wit, is the most exceptional quahty of the 

* Its correlation with Humour is, as we see from our diagram (Fig. 8), cos 10° 
or 0-98 and its correlation with Originality is cos 28° or o-88. 

f See above, pp. 103, 117. 

J We here assume the correlation yp/,= -'i?, which is about double the prob- 
able error, to be a significant figure; so that the correlation between Abilit}^ and 
Humour is low and negative. 

§ For gOq =cos~^ Vgq = cos~^ 0-53, and gOo =coS~^ y^o = cos~' 0-47, according to 
Dr Webb's table. 



124 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 3 

exceptional men represented by points in 8^), Cleverness, Originality 
and Quickness are all much above the average, but Ability is slightly 
below the average. This does not, of course, mean that very able men 
(men with very high ' g') may not have a great sense of Humour; but 
only that, the greater their Ability {'g'), the greater must be their 
Cleverness to produce a given degree of sense of Humour. 

The distinction between Ability {'g') and Cleverness has been 
emphasised by Dr Mercier in an essay on ' Cleverness and Capability.' * 
He maintains that these two qualities 'are quite different from one 
another,' and ' may be developed to very different degrees in the same 
person,' as the point representing that person in our diagram moves 
from the neighbourhood of Og to the neighbourhood of Oc. Dr Mercier 
is further of opinion that 'capability ['^']...may be inculcated by 
a proper training; but no training will make a stupid person clever.' 
Dr Mercier goes on : ' Capability can be acquired, and it should be one 
of the main objects of education to see that it is acquired.' The clever 
man of science 'is fertile in hypotheses.' 'The clever shopman amuses 
his customers'; he is, in fact, a wit. ' Capable people concentrate their 
attention on the matter in hand, think it out in all its bearings....' 
' Clever [but incapable] people are apt to make mistakes and go wrong 
because their attention is discursive.' ' From this lack of concentration 
it results that they do not think matters out.' 

William James, after pointing out that there are two stages in 
reasoning, the first of which — association by similarity — merely 
operates to call up cognate thoughts (Cleverness), and in the second 
of which attention is concentrated {'g') upon the bond of identity 
between these cognate thoughts, adds : ' So minds of genius may he 
divided into two main sorts, those who notice the bond and those who 
merely obey it. The first are the abstract reasoners, properly so called, 
the men of science, and philosophers — the analysts, in a word; the 
latter are the poets, the critics — the artists, in a word, the men of 
intuitions.' f According to this classification, great men of science 
and philosophers would be represented by points lying far from the 
origin but near to Og, while equally great poets and artists would be 
represented by points lying equally far from the origin but near to 
Oc. The importance to the poet of having a large ratio of c to ^ was 
emphasised, although in other words, by Schiller in a letter written 
in 1788, and quoted by Professor Freud |. Schiller wrote (to a friend 
who complained of his own lack of creativeness) : ' The reason for 

* Human Temperament, 1917, pp. 23-27. f Loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 361, 

% The Interpretation of Dreams, English edition, pp. 85, 86. 



II. 7. 3 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 125 

your complaint lies, it seems to me, in the constraint which your 
intelligence ['g'] imposes upon your imagination.' 

We may note in this connexion that the word 'genius' is more 
commonly used to denote exceptional Cleverness than exceptional ' g.' 
Thus William James writes: 

Geniuses are, by common consent, considered to differ from ordinary 
m.inds by an unusual development of association by similarity.... And as 
the genius is to the vulgarian, so the vulgar human mind.is to the intelhgence 
of a brute*. 

Again, in another place William James says that 

Geniuses are commonly believed to excel other men in their power of 
sustained attention. In most of them, it is to be feared, the so-called ' power ' 
is of the passive sort. Their ideas coruscate, every subject branches in- 
finitely before their fertile minds, and so for hours they may be rapt. But 
it is their genius making them attentive, not their attention making geniuses 
of them.... It is probable that genius tends actually to prevent a man from 
acquiring habits of voluntary attention, and that moderate intellectual 
endowments [moderate c] are the soil in which we may best expect, here 
as elsewhere, the virtues of the will \! g' \], strictly so called, to thrive. 
But, whether the attention come by grace of genius or by dint of will, the 
longer one does attend to a topic the more mastery of it one has. And the 
faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over 
again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will J. 

At the same time, it is probable that genius, as the word is 
commonly used, is more directly measured by e = ^/g^ + c^ than by 
g (measuring general Ability or capacity to concentrate attention) 
alone, or even by c (measuring Cleverness, as we have defined it, or 
tendency to associate by similarity) alone. 

If the independence of '^ 'and ' c ' be confirmed by further investiga- 
tion, and if, of these two, ' g' alone be educable (although its educability 
may be innate) §, the distinction between ' g' and ' c' should have 
important consequences for education. 

Some further light will be thrown upon the nature of Cleverness, 
as we have defined it, if we record in conclusion the correlations of 
its measure, c, with the measures of the forty-eight qualities investigated 
by Dr Webb. Calculated in the manner described in § 10 of Appendix 
B, these correlations are as follows: 

* Loc. cit. Vol. II, p. 348. 

•f In identifying ' g' -with 'will, strictly so called,' it is necessary, as we have 
seen, clearly to distinguish the momentary effort of will that we identify with 
' g' from the persistence oipurpor.e that in English is often called by the same name. 
See above, p. 98. 

X I.oc. cit. Vol. I, pp. 423-4. 

§ See below, § 5 of this chapter. 



126 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION 



II. 7. 3 



No. in 

Dr Webb's 

schedule 

I. 



9. 



23 
24 
25 

26 

27 

28 

29 

30 
31 

32 

33 
34 
35 
36 

37 



Table III. 

Correlation 
with 
Name of Quality ' Cleverness ' 

General tendency to be cheerful (as opposed to being 

depressed and low-spirited) ... ... ... -97 

Tendency to quick oscillation between cheerfulness and 

depression (as opposed to permanence of mood) -'05 

Occasional liability to extreme depression ... ... -*57 

Readiness to become angry ... ... ... ... -15 

Readiness to recover from anger ... ... ... -33 

Occasional liabilit}'^ to extreme anger ... ... ... --18 

Degree of aesthetic feeling (love of the beautifitl for its 

own sake) ... ... ... ... ... ... -39 

Degree of sense of humour ... ... ... ... "985* 

Desire to excel at performances (whether at work, play 

or otherwise) in which the person has his chief 

interest ... ... ... ... ... ... -46 

Desire to impose his own will on other people (as 

opposed to tolerance) ... ... ... ... -58 

Eagerness for admiration ... ... ... ... -18 

Belief in his own powers... ... ... ... ... '32 

Esteem of himself as a whole ... ... ... ... -30 

Offensive manifestation of this self-esteem (super- 
ciliousness) ... ... ... ... ... ... -12 

Fondness for large social gatherings ... ... ... -85 

Fondness for small circle of intimate friends ... ... •01 

Impulsive kindness (to be distinguished from No. 18) -50 

Tendency to do kindnesses on principle ... ... -40 

Degree of corporate spirit (in whatever body interest is 

taken) ... ... ... ... ... ... '68 

Trustworthiness (keeping his word or engagement, 

performing his believed duty) ... ... ... -07 

Conscientiousness (keenness of interest in the goodness 

and wickedness of actions) ... ... ... ... - -05 

Interest in religious beliefs and ceremonies (regardless 

of denomination) ... ... ... ... ... -'39 

Readiness to accept the sentiments of his associates... --29 

Desire to be liked by his associates ... ... ... -56 

Wideness of his influence ... ... ... ... '67 

Intensity of his influence on his special intimates ... -84 

Degree of 'tact' in getting on with people ... ... '60 

Extent of mental work bestowed upon usual studies - -oi 
Extent of mental work bestowed upon pleasures (games, 

etc.) -31 

Degree of bodily activity during business hours ... -64 
Degree of bodily activity in pursuit of pleasures (games, 

etc.) -37 

Degree in which he works with distant objects in view 

(as opposed to living 'from hand to mouth') ... --07 

Tendency not to abandon tasks in the face of obstacles -39 

Tendency not to abandon tasks from mere changeability - -06 

Quickness of apprehension ... ... ... ... "95 

Profoundness of apprehension ... ... ... ... -59 

Soundness of common-sense ... ... ... ... '51 



* This figure cannot be calculated from equation (13) in § 10 of Appendix B. 
The equivalent formula >-«/, = "^ , -''*"- " '' has therefore been used. 



II. 7. 3 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 127 

Table III — continued. 

No. in Correlation 
Dr Webb's with 

schedule Name of Quality 'Cleverness' 

38. Originality of ideas ... ... ... ... ... -SS 

39. Pure-mindedness (extent to which he shuns telling or 

hearing stories of immoral meaning) ... ... -'45 

40. Power of getting through mental work rapidly . . . -59 

41. Physique (estimated by visiting doctor and lecturer in 

physical exercises) ... ... ... ... ... '16 

42. General excellence of character (estimated by lec- 

turers) ... ... ... ... ... ... -02 

43. Estimate of general excellence of character (supplied by 

each prefect) ... ... ... ... ... ... -33 

44. Examinational ability ... ... ... ... ... -30 

45. Athletics (estimated by captains and by a member of 

the college staff) ... ... ... ... ... -27 

46. Experimental tests of intelligence, furnishing the 

correlations of 'g' with the forty-seven other 
qualities, as explained on pp. 35-38 of Dr Webb's 
paper ... ... ... ... ... ... ... -oo* 

47. Degree of strength of will ... ... ... ... '41 

48. Degreeof excitability (as opposed to being phlegmatic) -22 

Inspection of these figures indicates that Cleverness may be recognised 
in practice — as, for example, when interviewing, for an appointment, 
a candidate to whose general Ability {' g') testimonials or examination 
results bear witness — by noting his sense of humour, general tendency 
to cheerfulness (which is perhaps difficult to judge on the occasion 
of such an interview!), or quickness of apprehension. 

It remains to add that, since g and c both enter f into several 
intellectual qualities, g cannot be regarded as a measure of general 
intelligence :j: . But no harm will be done by speaking of g, as we have 
done, as a measure of General Ability or of Ability, so long as we 
remember that this is our definition of Ability: the quality whose 
measure is g. 

§ 4. The Fourth Law: Free Will. 

We have now to sum up this discussion leading to our fourth law 
of thought. 

* The correlation between the independent variables c and g cannot be 
calculated from equation (14). That its value is zero follows from our definition of c. 
t According to the vector law 

qi=g cos di + c sin Oi 

where qi is the measure of the intellectual quality in question and 6i is the angle 
which its vector would make with Og in Fig. 8. 

I The early papers on the general factor identify it with ' general intelligence ' 
(Spearman, ^w./. P. Vol.xv, p. 201; Burt, i?. 7. P. Vol. in, p. 94). But Dr Hart and 
Professor Spearman have demonstrated that g does not measure 'general intelli- 
gence ' as ordinarily understood or imputed by teachers. (See loc. cit. pp. 67 and 71.) 



128 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 4 

We began * by considering the fundamental question whether soul 
and body do, or do not, interact. Recognising that no known facts 
were conclusive on either side, we determined f, on ethical grounds, 
to assume interaction, an assumption we delayed formulating in the 
hope that we might be able to say, not only that interaction takes 
place, but also how it takes place. 

The means by which the soul acts (or seems to act) on the body we 
called 'Will.' Men give this one name to every voluntary effort, 
whether to worship God or to overpower a foe. But they cannot be 
sure that two such different efforts of Will have anything in common 
except the feeling of effort and the name. Will. While awaiting further 
evidence, we made the simplest assumption possible: namely, that 
the common-sense of mankind is right in supposing that the process 
of ' willing ' is one and the same in whatever connexion it occurs — or, 
in other words, that one and the same general factor operates in all 
voluntary acts — and in marking this supposition by the use of the 
one word. Will. 

We next observed that our third law of thought, derived (as it 
was) from consideration of involuntary thinking, was ready with the 
suggestion of a single simple process — reinforcement (or facilitation) — 
by which the soul might exert all its manifold influences upon the 
body. And we remarked that it was as reinforcement of neural 
excitement (or, what amounts to the same thing |, as concentration 
of attention) that William James, Dr McDougall, and others, writing 
before the experimental and statistical work of Mr Burt and Dr Webb, 
described the ' unique '§ means by which the soul affects the body. 

Subsequently, as we saw||, the statistical investigations of Pro- 
fessor Spearman and his followers have led to the demonstration^ 
that a single general factor, ' g,' enters into all mental measurements 
and that, whenever the qualities measured are sufficiently dissimilar, 
each of these qualities is compounded, according to the vector law, 
of the general factor ' g' and of a specific factor that is independent 
both of '^' and of the other specific factors. Each of n sufiiciently 
dissimilar mental tests is thus compounded, according to the vector 
law, of two out oin+ 1 independent factors, one of the two being in 
every case the single general factor ' g' and the other a specific factor**. 

We next ft investigated the nature of this general factor, and we 
observed that, if we were right in assuming that human Wills exist 

* On p. 95. t See above, p. 98. % See the footnote || on p. 129 below, 

§ See above, p. loi. || On pp. 103 to 113. ^ Garnett, Proc. R. S. loc. cit. 

** I.e. it enters into that test alone. See footnote § on p. 477 (Appendix B, § 3). 

If On pp. 113 et seq. 



II. 7. 4 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 129 

and are able to affect thought and conduct by reinforcing neural 
excitement or by concentrating attention, then the measure, g, of the 
general factor or General Ability also measures the power to con- 
centrate attention by an effort of Will ; or, briefly, that g measures 
Will. Then we saw that the truth of this conclusion was confirmed in 
several independent ways* by Mr Burt's Oxford experiments on 
schoolboys |, and by Dr Webb's research on Training College students. 
Then we considered some other suggestions concerning the nature of 
the general factor, and observed, in particular, that 'Cleverness' 
enters as a group factor into several intellectual qualities so that it 
would be misleading to describe g as a. measure of general intelligence, 
although it would be convenient to describe as Ability the quality 
whose measure is g. But we found nothing inconsistent with our 
conclusion J that g measures power to concentrate attention by an 
effort of Will. 

Our assumption of psycho-physical interaction and of the manner 
of it, thus fits experience as neatly as could be desired §. These assump- 
tions we now formulate as our fourth law of thought : Will, measured 
by the general factor g, can reinforce the excitement in any excited system 
of higher level arcs ; and so, by our third law, may cause that system 
to drain the excitement from all other active arcs of the higher level. 
But it is only if the Will's reinforcement of the excitement in a 
neurogram is sufficient, that the neurogram in question drains the 
excitement from other active arcs, so that the corresponding thought- 
activity comes next into the focus of consciousness ||. 

* The dotting test, the motor tests, and the memory tests. 

f See pp. 115, 116. X See above, p. 117. 

§ The present writer is not aware that the alternative hypotheses — whether 
epiphenomenaUsm or psycho-physical parallelism in either form — account so 
simply for these new facts; and in particular for the remarkable fact that each 
of any number n of sufficiently dissimilar mental qualities appears always to be 
compounded (according to the vector law) of one of an equal number n of inde- 
pendent (specific) qualities with a single general factor that is independent of 
each of these n specific qualities and, in fact, to use a geometrical metaphor, 
belongs to another (or n + ith) dimension. But he does not therefore claim that 
the assumption of interaction — namely, that the Will, referred to in the fourth 
law of thought, is the instrument of soul acting on body — finds its principal 
support on other than ethical grounds. The fourth law, that the effort of attention 
that we call an act of Will is accompanied by increased neural excitement in 
higher level arcs, might indeed be regarded as independent of the interaction 
hypothesis. 

II The fact that power to concentrate attention on any desired thought- 
activity, <a, is the same as the power to reinforce excitement in the corresponding 
neurogram. A, follows from our first and third laws of thought. Experimental 
support for this identification is not lacking. The reagents in Mr Burt's experiments 
asserted that the dotting test required the greatest effort of attention. It followed 
that the more they concentrated their attention, the larger was the number of 
circles which they were able to ' dot ' in a given time ; or, once more, the greater 



130 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 4 

Thus the Will may guide* the stream of thought by concentrating 
excitement in selected active neurograms. Our fourth law implies that 
the Will can intensify the stream of thought, as well as guide it. It 
is true that, when the Will intervenes to inhibit an emotion by con- 
centrating attention on some conflicting thought-activity, this inter- 
vention, if successful, may result in a decrease of the total excitement. 
But for most purposes of voluntary thinking, the Will does intensify 
the neural processes involved : for example, when Dr McDougall found 
that the exercise of Will might so increase the intensity of neural 
impulses that ten or twelve readings of a row of nonsense syllables 
might effect a greater lowering of resistance — a higher degree of 
'canalisation' — than 150 readings 'in an attitude of indifference.' f 

We are unable to say whence comes the excitement which the 
Will adds to that of an active neurogram so as to make all the avail- 
able excitement drain through the neurogram whose activity is thus 
intensified. It is, however, reasonable to suppose that the guiding 
excitement is part of the available excitement at the moment, rather 
than that the Will taps some mysterious outside source for the 
excitement which it requires for the purpose of guiding thought. It 
is, in fact, probable that, as Dr McDougall has said, we shall have 
to recognise in this concentration of nervous energy a unique effect 
of psychical activity |. 

the effort of attention, the shorter the latency — the interval between the stimulus 
(the appearance of the empty circle on the right of the aperture) and the reaction 
(the putting of a dot inside the circle). That effort of attention shortens 'reaction 
time' is, of course, well known: cf. W. James, loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 425, and pp. 427—34. 

Now, Professor Sherrington has shewn that, in the case of simple reflexes, 
short latencies follow strong stimuli. For example: the latency of the scratch 
reflex in a spinal dog usually lies between 0-14 second for intenser stimulation, 
and 0-5 second for weaker, but sometimes extends to 2-44 or even to 3-54 seconds. 
(Loc. cit. p. 21.) Similarly, the latency in the inhibition of extensor muscle, in 
the case of the flexion reflex, was as short as -032 second with strong stimuli; 
but with weak stimuli was occasionally as long as 0-4 second (p. 92). 

There is no reason to doubt that the stronger the stimulus voluntarily applied 
to the boy's motor centres in the dotting test, the shorter would be the latency 
of the reaction. It appears, then, that a strong feeling of effort of attention 
accompanies strong reinforcement of neural excitement in the motor centres. 

* By our third law and its corollary, neurograms — interest-systems, and 
especially instinct -neurograms — may also guide thought. So we may now say 
that thought is guided by neurograms and Will; or, if we prefer, by instincts, 
interests, and Will. 

f McDougall quoted above, p. 100. Dr McDougall adds this comment: 
' Experiments of this class... are bringing home to us the magnitude of the influence 
of conation (volition) as compared with mere temporal contiguity or succession. 
Mental process is effective... in proportion as it involves strong conation, strong 
desire or volition; a fact which implies on the neural side effective concentration of 
psycho-physical energy in proportion to the strength of the conation.' (American 
Journal of Insanity, Vol. lxix, p. 869.) 

X Physiological Psychology, p. 167, quoted above, p. loi. 



II. 7. 4 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 131 

We said that the Will not only concentrates excitement — probably 
part of the available excitement at the moment — so as to guide 
thought, but also increases the total quantity of available excitement. 
The source of the addition to the total available excitement that 
results from the Will's intervention is less uncertain than that of the 
excitement which the Will concentrates in a particular neurogram in 
order to cause drainage through that neurogram ; for the intervention 
of Will — the exercise of voluntary effort — is commonly accompanied 
by the liberation of neural impulses from some interest-system which 
the Will renders active. We do well to remind ourselves that, according 
to our definition*, an 'interest-system' is any system of intercon- 
nected neurograms, any system of neurones (not necessarily confined 
to the brain or even to the spinal cord) which are connected by 
synapses of low resistance. We may recognise three types of interest- 
system, whose excitement may accompany an effort of Will and 
liberate meanwhile the additional impulses, which are drained 
through the neurogram selected by the Will for this purpose and the 
effects of which may then be observed, as in Dr McDougall's experi- 
ments on Memory!, or as they are marked in e very-day life by the 
increased force of muscular contraction that results from a strong 
effort of Will. 

The first type of interest-system is one of which the excitement 
results in some characteristic series of bodily movements. The 
voluntary movements that most commonly accompany the concen- 
tration of attention are perhaps those of the muscles of the lips and 
eyes. Most people who are accustomed to concentrated intellectual 
effort find that, during every such effort of attention, the eyes, and 
often the forehead and lips also, are being strained. The position of 
strain, once voluntarily adopted, maintains itself, and the feeling of 
strain is accompanied by the inrush of impulses which add to the 
available neural excitement |. It should be added that the particular 
muscles affected in the facial expression of attention vary widely with 
different individuals; but the strain or movement of muscle, that adds 
to the available excitement during voluntary effort, is by no means 
necessarily confined to the muscles of the face and head. 'It is a 
well-known fact that persons striving to keep their attention on a 

* See above, p. 62, including footnote ||. f See above, p. 100. 

X I have often observed that, after going to bed at the end of a hard day's 
brain work, I have been kept awake by a feehng of continued effort and excitement ; 
but that, no sooner had I realised that the source of the trouble consisted in the 
continued facial attitude of attention, than the voluntary relaxation of my lip 
and eye muscles resulted almost immediately in the cessation of the feeling of 
strain, and so in falling asleep. 

y— 2 



132 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 4 

difficult subject will resort to movements of various unmeaning kinds, 
such as pacing the room, drumming with the fingers, playing with 
keys or watch-chain, scratching head, pulling moustache, vibrating 
foot, or what not, according to the individual. There is an anecdote 
of Sir Walter Scott, when a boy, rising to the head of his class by 
cutting off from the jacket of the usual head boy a button which the 
latter was in the habit of twirling in his fingers during thp lesson. 
The button gone, its owner's power of reciting also departed.'* 
William James regarded these movements as serviceable in fostering 
thought by draining off superfluous brain currents. Dr Ballard is 
probably more correct when he writes : ' The real explanation, it seems 
to me, is that they support trains of thought by providing the 
necessary degree of present sense stimulation.' f He adds: 'I find 
that if I wish to concentrate my mind on a difficult problem, 
I can do so best while rapidly tapping the ground with my right 
foot.' 

Secondly, the interest-system whose activity provides the additional 
excitement that generally accompanies voluntary effort, may consist 
principally of arcs of the visceral or 'autonomic' system |. Darwin, 
for instance, testified to having heard, 'as a proof of the exciting 
nature of anger, that a man when excessively jaded will sometimes 
invent imaginary offences and put himself into a passion, uncon- 
sciously for the sake of reinvigorating himself; and,' Darwin continues, 

* W. James, loc. cit. Vol. i, pp. 457, 458. 

t Loc. cit. pp. 53, 54. 

X McDougall has suggested that 'the source of the additional motive power, 
which in the moral effort of volition is thrown upon the side of the weaker, more 
ideal impulse, is ultimately to be found in that instinct of self-display or self-asser- 
tion whose affective aspect is the emotion of positive self- feeling ' (Social Psychology, 
p. 256) and whose neurogram is an important constituent of the neurogram of 
the self-regarding sentiment (see below, p. 146). Indeed, he defines 'volition as 
the supporting or re-enforcing of a desire or conation by the co-operation of an impulse 
excited within the system of the self-regarding sentiment' [Social Psychology, p. 249). 
He thus makes self-conscious willing continuous with lower forms of conation. 
McDougall's account of volition is accordingly consistent with our account of 
(see Chapter 8, below) that kind of will— will at long range — that we decided 
(on p. 98, above) to call 'purpose.' But our account of will at short range — the 
'Will' with which this chapter is concerned — describes every effort of Will as 
due to psycho-physical interaction, resulting in an increase of excitement in a 
particular system of nervous arcs. The interest-system whose activity provides 
the additional excitement may, however, very well be the self-regarding sentiment, 
as McDougall suggests. 

The measure g (see p. 117) of Will would in any case depend upon the interest- 
system, whether that of the self-regarding sentiment or any other, from which 
the additional excitement generally comes. It would also depend upon the 
relation of that interest-system to the rest of the neurography (see above, p. 63). 
It would therefore be a function of bodily organisation; but, if we are right in 
assuming psycho-physical interaction, not necessarily of bodily organisation 
alone. 



II. 7. 4 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 133 

'since hearing this remark, I have occasionally recognized its full 
truth.'* 

The increase of available excitement that results from voluntarily 
putting oneself into a passion, or from over-exciting oneself by other 
voluntary means, may be further intensified and prolonged by bodily 
changes that result from intense excitement. Thus Professor Cannon 
has shewn that intense excitement stimulates the adrenal glands — 
small glands of internal secretion lying anterior to each kidney — 
which thereupon increase the percentage of their secretion, 'adrenin,' 
in the blood. The increased secretion of adrenin produces severa,! 
bodily changes: 'the cessation of processes in the alimentary canal 
(thus freeing the energy supply for other parts) ; the shifting of blood 
from the abdominal organs, whose activities are deferable, to the 
organs immediately essential to muscular exertion (the lungs, the 
heart, the central nervous system) ; the increased vigor of contraction 
of the heart; the quick abolition of the effects of muscular fatigue; 
the mobilizing of energy-giving sugar in the circulation.' Professor 
Cannon points out that ' every one of these visceral changes is directly 
serviceable in making the organism more effective in the violent display 
of energy which fear or rage or pain may involve.' f In short, the presence 
of adrenin in the blood intensifies and prolongs the bodily changes 
which gave rise to it. Some of these changes, notably the transfer 
of blood to the central nervous system, are evidently favourable to 
an increased output of neural excitement J . 

* Quoted from Darwin [The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, 
p. 79) by Professor W. B. Cannon, Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage 
(1915), p. 216. f Loc. cit. pp. 215, 216. 

X They can be brought about indirectly, it is true, by intense voluntary 
effort, as was proved by the glycosuria of four out of nine medical students, all 
normally without sugar in their urine, after a hard examination, while only one 
of the nine had glycosuria after an easier examination. (Cannon, loc. cit. p. 75.) 
Professor Cannon adds: 'It would doubtless be incorrect to attempt to account 
for all the increased strength and tireless endurance, which may be experienced 
in periods of great excitement, on the basis of abundant supplies provided then 
for muscular contraction, and a special secretion for avoiding or abolishing the 
depressive influences of fatigue. Tremors, muscular twitchings, the assumption 
of characteristic attitudes, all indicate that there is an immensely augmented 
activity of the nervous system — an activity that discharges powerfully even into 
parts not directly concerned in struggle, as, for example, into the muscles of 
voice, causing peculiar cries or warning notes; into the muscles of the ears, drawing 
them back or causing them to stand erect, and into the small muscles about the 
lips, tightening them and revealing the teeth. The typical appearances of human 
beings, as well as lower animals, when in the grip of such deeply agitating emotions 
as fear and rage, are so well recognized as to constitute a primitive and common 
means of judging the nature of the experience through which the organism is 
passing. This "pattern" response of the nervous system to an emotion-provoking 
object or situation is probably capable of bringing into action a much greater 
number of neurones in the central nervous system than are likely to be concerned 



134 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 4 

In the third place, an interest-system stimulated by the Will and 
then serving to increase the available excitement, may consist 
primarily of brain neurones. The activity of such an interest-system 
need not be accompanied by movement of skeletal muscle or by 
impulses traversing visceral arcs, unless on account of affective- 
conative elements in the interest. Thus, to increase the effect of willing 
to do some unpleasant duty, one may voluntarily awaken the interests 
with which the duty in question is in harmony. The awakening of 
these interests will not only increase the total excitement available, 
but, by 'multiple stimulation,' in the manner described above*, will 
involuntarily guide the stream of thought in the direction in which 
the Will is guiding it voluntarily, namely, towards the performance 
of the originally distasteful task. The wider and deeper the accessible 
interest-systems possessed by any individual, the greater the reserves 
of which his Will can thus make use to reinforce its direct action. 
The use to which such interest-systems as we are now considering 
may be put in voluntary thinking is illustrated in scientific research 
when the researcher desires to associate two hitherto unconnected 
thought-activities or their corresponding neurogramsf. For example, 
Maxwell, having formulated equations for the propagation of electro- 
magnetic waves, and conceiving the possibility of a hitherto unsus- 
pected connexion between electro-magnetic waves and light, would, 
by voluntarily awakening his interest in optics, add to the excitement 
available for working out the speed at which, according to his equations, 
electro-magnetic waves would travel, a speed which turned out to be 
the speed of light. Or Newton, having conceived the possibility of 
a hitherto unsuspected connexion between the acceleration of a body 
falling on to the earth's surface and the central acceleration of the 
moon in her orbit, may have derived from his interest in astronomy 
so great an increase of neural excitement that (in fact) he had to get 
a friend to complete the arithmetic which proved that the same 
terrestrial gravitation is responsible, both for the weight of bodies on 
the earth's surface, and for holding the moon in her orbit. 

Before leaving this discussion of the increment of neural excite- 
ment that commonly accompanies voluntary effort, we do well to 

in even a supreme act of volition. The nervous impulses delivered to the muscles, 
furthermore, operate upon organs well supplied with energy-yielding material 
and well fortified by rapidly circulating blood and by secreted adrenin, against 
quick loss of power because of accumulating waste. Under such circumstances 
of excitement the performance of extraordinary feats of strength or endurance 
is natural enough.' {Loc cit. pp. 217, 218.) 

* See above, p. 83 

■[• Cf. below, Chapter 14J 



II. 7. 4 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 135 

note one important effect of the increase in question. Suppose that, 
at any moment, a thought-activity ^ is occupying the focus of 
consciousness. According to our second law, excitement diffuses from 
A into as many connected arcs, Ai,A2, ... , A„, as are connected with 
A through synapses whose insulations the excitement in A is sufficient 
to overcome; and the greater the excitement in A, the greater will 
be the number, n, of associated neurograms that will be rendered 
active as the excitement drains through A. Since, according to our 
fourth law, the Will can only select (intensify the activity of, and so 
cause to drain) neurograms that are already active, it follows that 
increase in the excitement of A increases in general the number of 
associated neurograms from which the Will can choose one to drain 
the system. Or, in other words, the greater the neural excitement, 
the greater the number of thought-activities from among which the 
Will can choose one and bring it into the focus of consciousness*. The 
greater, therefore, the neural excitement in a given individual, the 
greater will be his chance of following a novel train of thought, and 
so of doing original thinking f; or, if he is undergoing examination, 
the greater will be his chance of bringing to mind some almost for- 
gotten element of his subject; or, if he is making a public speech, the 
greater will be the choice of language at his command. 

§ 5. Educahility of Will. 

We have next to enquire whether the Will — capacity for con- 
centrating and increasing neural excitement — is educable. Mr Burt 
is inclined to answer this question in the negative. He gives various 
reasons for believing 'that the superior proficiency at Intelligence 
tests on the part of boys of superior parentage, was inborn.' | But 
the boys 'of superior parentage' were also the boys of a particular 
school which, if Will is educable, may or may not have been superior 
to the other in developing ' g.' The principal item of evidence cited 
by Mr Burt in support of his view consisted in the repetition of his 
intelligence tests on a number of the Elementary School boys some 
eighteen months after the series previously described. The average 
performance of the Elementary School boys at the second test differed, 

* See below, pp. 187, 188. 

•f Webb, in the case of his training college students {loc. cit. Table VI), found 
that the correlation between measured 'g' (ability to concentrate attention) and 
estimated originality of ideas was -47. Cf. also W. James' observation that ' If 
focalisation {concentration'] of brain activity be the fundamental fact of reasonable 
[voluntary] thought, we see why intense interest or concentrated passion makes 
us think so much more truly and profoundly.' (Vol. 11, pp. 366, 367.) 

X Loc. cit. p. 176, 



136 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 5 

in the case of most tests, by less than ten per cent, from the average 
performance eighteen months previously. One of the two exceptional 
cases was card dealing; the other shewed a marked improvement, 
which Mr Burt attributes to the persistence of the practice gained 
during the earUer experiments. The dotting test shewed a deterioration 
of three per cent., and this was typical. Mr Burt comments that, 
though the period between the ages of thirteen and fifteen is for boys 
one of rapid progress in knowledge, interests, and acquired aptitudes, 
their capacities — 'g' — measured by the tests seemed during the 
interval to have remained all but stationary. He adds: 'Hence, these 
capacities appear to constitute a relatively permanent endowment; 
and consequently it seems legitimate to assume that they depend 
upon innate differences in the individuals concerned.' * 

It is to be remarked, on the other hand, that many of the 
Elementary School boys subjected to the second test had meanwhile 
left school and become employed in routine work which, presumably, 
made no great demand for the exercise of intellectual effort. If 
practice in the exercise of Will increases the effect of voluntary effort 
— in other words, if '^' can be increased by practice — boys would 
not be unlikely to suffer, during a period of unintelligent employ- 
ment, a diminution f of 'g'' at least equal to the increase of their '^' in 
the Elementary School during the first part of the interval between 
the first and second tests. Had it been possible for Mr Burt to repeat 
his tests on the Preparatory School boys after an eighteen months' 
interval spent by them in preparing for public school scholarship 
and entrance examinations, and affording them, therefore, much 
practice in the concentration of attention, and had he found that the 
'i^' of these boys had not improved appreciably in the interval, the 
result might well have been conclusive. 

Another argument advanced by Mr Burt in support of his view 
that 'g' is inherited, rather than developed by education, rests upon 
the fact that, in most mental tests, the Preparatory boys, whose 
fathers were 'in nearly every case... fellows of the Royal Society, 
university professors, college tutors, and bishops,' surpassed the boys 
of the Elementary School, 'sons of local tradesmen.' But, as we have 
said, the Preparatory boys on the one hand, and the Elementary 

* Loc. cil. p. 176. 

f It is the experience of many large firms of manufacturing engineers in the 
North of England that such a deterioration does take place. For this reason the 
firms in question prefer to receive boys into their shops straight from school at 
fourteen years of age, and to direct their (part-time) education from fourteen to 
sixteen years, when their 'apprenticeship' begins, rather than to receive them at 
sixteen after two years' deterioration in uneducational employment. 



II. 7. 5 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 137 

boys on the other, not only had different fathers but attended different 
schools; and it may well be that the Preparatory boys, in writing 
Latin verses and Greek exercises, and in solving problems in arith- 
metic, not only in school but in considerable quantity for home-work 
also, received practice in the voluntary concentration of attention out 
of all proportion greater than that given by the comparatively play- 
like exercises of the Elementary School. 

A final and more weighty argument in favour of Mr Burt's view, 
is the low correlation (0-29) between the alphabet test of Intelligence 
and age, in the case of sixty Elementary School boys between ten 
and sixteen years of age. It would be interesting to see whether the 
correlations between 'g' and the length of time during which reagents 
had been subjected to a strenuous intellectual discipline is equally low. 

On the other hand, it is verj^ generally agreed that the Will — or 
power to concentrate attention* — is educable, that 'development of 
will power in connection with any activity is accompanied by a 
development of will power as a whole.' f For example, Dr Temple, 
discussing the Will and its freedom, writes : ' It scarcely matters what 
subject is taught: the vital matter is that the child should learn 
"attention" in general.' | 

Again, Sir Edmund Gosse describes how, as a child, he spent many 
hours in a stuffy little room making solemn and ridiculous imitations 
of papers read by his father before the Linnean Society; and he adds: 

My labours failed to make me a zoologist, and the multitude of my 
designs and my descriptions have left me helplessly ignorant of the anatomy 
of a sea-anemone. Yet I cannot look upon the mental disciphne as useless. 
It taught me to concentrate my attention.... Moreover, it gave me the 
habit of going on with any piece of work I had in hand, not flagging because 
the interest or picturesqueness of the theme had declined, but pushing forth 
towards a definite goal, well foreseen and limited beforehand. For almost 
any intellectual employment in later life, it seems to me that this discipline 
was valuable. I am, however, not the less conscious how ludicrous was 
the mode in wliich, in my tenth year, I obtained it§. 

Once more, C. G. J. Jacobi (1804-51), the great mathematician, 
is reported to have said: 'It must not be supposed that it is to a gift 
of Nature that I owe such mathematical power as I possess. No, it 
has come by hard work, hard work. Not mere industry, but brain- 

* See the fourth law on p. 129, above. 

t Psychological Review, Vol. vi, p. 165; quoted by Spearman, Am. J. P. 
Vol. XV, p. 216. 

J The Nature of Personality, p. 28. 

§ Father and Son (1909 edition), p. 176. 



138 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 5 

splitting thinking — hard work ; hard work that has often endangered 
my health.'* 

The chief Civil Service Commissioner (Sir Stanley Leathes) is 
of the same opinion. 'What is valuable in historical education,' he 
writes, 'is not the acquisition of a set of facts... by lectures or system- 
atic instruction, but... the effort to master and understand the books.' f 

We have also some direct evidence of the educability of Will 
(measured by ' g') in the high correlation which, as § 8 of Appendix B 
shews, Dr Webb's research proved to exist between ' g' and practice 
in the concentration of attention. Those students who worked hardest 
at their studies, ' reckoned in amount of actual energy, not in results 
of work, or quickness of work,'| had ceteris paribus the highest ' g.' 

While then the balance of available evidence seems to indicate 
that ' g' is educable, and capable of being increased by practice in 
concentrating attention \>y effort of Will, the degree of its educability 
may well be innate. 

§ 6. Will in Everyday Life. 

We have now to examine the part played by voluntary thinking 
in everyday life. We observe, in the first place, that this part is 
supremely important: the title role in very truth. For it is only by 
moving the Will to intervene in the stream of consciousness that the 
soul or ego makes itself felt. Nevertheless the Will is by no means 
always on the stage. 

For example, most of what we do is not done at the direct instance 
of our Wills. Many of our movements are obviously not 'willed' at 
all. Of a spinal reflex § one is not even conscious; and a sensation 
reflex II or an instinctive movement may take place for the first time 
without being preceded by the appearance of an image of it in con- 
sciousness^. That is to say, reflexes and instinctive movements may 
be unforeseen. They may even be unrecognised. For, although the 
occurrence of any movement that is not a spinal reflex may be felt, 

* Professor Sir Richard Gregory, Discovery, p. 5. 

t What is Education? p. 82. (Italics mine.) 

X Webb, loc. cit. p. 91. A further indication that ' g' is educable is cited below 
in footnote * on p. 159. 

§ See above, p. 35. 

II See above, p. 36. 

^ Cf. W. James: 'The other day I was standing at a railroad station with a 
little child, when an express- train went thundering by. The child, who was near 
the edge of the platform, started, winked, had his breathing convulsed, turned 
pale, burst out crying, and ran frantically towards me and hid his face. 1 have 
no doubt that this youngster was almost as much astonished by his own behaviour 
as he was by the train, and more than I was, who stood bv.' (Loc. cit. Vol. 11, 
p. 487.) 



II. 7. 6 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 139 

the feeling need not necessarily occupy the focus of consciousness 
and so receive attention. In other words, the impulses in the system 
of brain arcs that corresponds to the feeling of such a movement may 
not be sufficiently intense to cause that system of arcs to drain the 
available excitement. This system of arcs becomes a neurogram, 
however shallow, by reason of all the arcs comprising it having been 
excited together; and if this neurogram does drain the available 
excitement, not only is the neurogram of the feeling deepened but it 
becomes connected with the neurogram of the thought-activity — the 
stimulus — which led to the movement in question. The next time 
that the stimulus-neurogram is excited, the excitement tends to 
spread to the neurogram of the feeling of the movement, which may 
thus be foreseen and brought under the Will's control. In short, a 
movement that has once occurred and has attracted sufficient attention 
becomes, for the future, a movement capable of being controlled by 
the Will : there is a neurogram corresponding to it, and, whenever this 
neurogram is excited, the Will can intensif}^ the excitement until the 
neurogram drains again and the movement is repeated. 

Two aspects of this matter require to be noticed. In the first 
place, our brief account needs qualification unless the movement in 
question is so simple that a single performance leaves a sufficient 
record to render repetition possible : the man who has only once had 
the luck to cut a three on the ice, or to bring off a Telemark swing 
on skis, cannot yet say that he can perform these feats at will. 

Our second remark relates to the repetition of a movement on the 
sufficient excitement of the neurogram of the kinaesthetic sensation 
of a previous performance. As we have seen*, the kinaesthetic 
impulses that reach the Rolandic cortex during the contraction of a 
muscle appear to return b}^ the pyramidal tract to the motor neurones 
of that muscle and so to reinforce its contraction. Accordingh^ when 
the kinaesthetic centres (neurones of the Rolandic cortex) are excited 
afresh, as an image of the feeling of the movement appears in the 
field of consciousness, the excitement tends to spread in the same 
direction as before, namely down the pyramidal tract to the motor 
neurones. Unless therefore the kinaesthetic (Rolandic) portion f of 
the neurogram of a movement is drained in some other way — for 
example, in accordance with our third law, as the attention passes 
involuntarily or voluntarily away from the image of the movement 

* See above, pp. 59, 60. 

I A neurogram of a movement may contain arcs in various other regions of 
the cortex — for example, arcs the excitement of which corresponds to a visual 
image of the movement. 



140 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 6 

to some other thought-activity — its excitement must lead to the 
movement in question. In other words 'every representation of a 
{voluntary] movement awakens in some degree* the actual movement 
which is its object; and awakens it in a maximum degree whenever it is 
not kept from so doing by an antagonistic representation present simul- 
taneously to the mind.' f Whenever movement follows unhesitatingly 
and immediately the notion of it in the mind — i.e. when there is no 
antagonistic thought-activity present — we have what is called ' ideo- 
motor' action t. 

Now the voluntary movements which we have just been considering 
are called 'voluntary,' not because the Will need operate to secure 
their performance, but because they are subject to the control of the 
Will. Generally, when they occur it is not because the Will has caused 
them; and when they are inhibited, their inhibition is not in general 
due to the Will. On the contrary, these voluntary movements follow, 
as we have said, when their kinaesthetic images occupy the focus of 
consciousness unchallenged; and these images generally attain and 
occupy that position in the course — or, rather, at the end — of a train 
of involuntary thinking, such as we considered in connexion with our 
third law§. 

William James has pointed out how apt we are to suppose that 
the Will intervenes — that some fiat or effort of decision is required — 
in many voluntary movements which, in fact, are simple ideo-motor 
acts. Thus he writes: 

We know what it is to get out of bed on a freezing morning in a room 
without a fire, and how the very vital principle within us protests against 
the ordeal. Probably most persons have lain on certain mornings for an 
hour at a time unable to brace themselves to the resolve. We think how 
late we shall be, how the duties of the day will suffer; we say, 'I must get 
up, this is ignominious,' etc.; but still the warm couch feels too delicious, 
the cold outside too cruel, and resolution faints away and postpones itself 
again and again just as it seemed on the verge of bursting the resistance 
and passing over into the decisive act. Now how do we ever get up under 
such circumstances ? If I may generalise from my own experience, we more 
often than not get up without any struggle or decision at all. We suddenly 
find that we have got up. A fortunate lapse of consciousness occurs; we 
forget both the warmth and the cold; we fall into some revery connected 
with the day's life, in the course of which the idea flashes across us ' Hollo ! 

* Thus the spectator of an exciting high-jump competition accompanies each 
competitor's jump with an incipient movement of his own legs. Other examples 
are quoted by W. James (loc. cit. Vol. ii, p. 525) from Lotze. 

f W. James {Inc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 526) who itahcises the words quoted. 

% W. James {loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 522). 

§ See above, p. 79. 



II. 7. 6 WILL AND GENERAL ABILITY 141 

I must lie here no longer' — an idea which at that lucky instant awakens 
no contradictory or paralysing suggestions, and consequently produces 
immediately its appropriate motor effects. It was our acute consciousness 
of both the warmth and the cold during the period of struggle, which 

paralysed our activity then The moment these inhibitory ideas ceased, 

the original idea exerted its effects*. 

William James concludes that 

The immense majority of human decisions are decisions without effort. 
In comparatively few of them, in most people, does effort accompany the 
final act. We are, I think, misled into supposing that effort is more frequent 
than it is, by the fact that during deliberation we so often have a feeling of 
how great an effort it would take to make a decision now. Later, after the 
decision has made itself with ease, we recollect this and erroneously suppose 

the effort also to have been made thenf It may be remarked in passing, 

that the inhibition of a movement no more involves an express effort or 
command than its execution does % . 

When we come to discuss the fifth law of thought we shall see 
that action of one kind or another is the normal end of every train 
of thought. We have already seen that an effort of Will does not 
ordinarily accompany the final action. Introspection indicates that 
most of our trains of thought are even more free from efforts of Will 
than the acts which end them. Or, as we have said, most of our 
thinking is involuntary, proceeding to its end under the influence of 
sensations, institicts, and active and inactive systems — especially their 
affective-conative elements — in the manner described § in our dis- 
cussion of the third law. 

Among these involuntary thought-activities — whether in the 
middle of a train of thought or towards the end of it, when the excite- 
ment is about to be discharged in producing bodily movement — the 
soul only intervenes (by means of the Will) in the event of conflict 
between the involuntary processes: such conflicts often obstruct the 
fulfilment of the soul's purposes. Or, more briefly, the Will only 
intervenes to resolve conflicts. 

Introspection is our authority for this generalisation. For example, 
I am never conscious of making an effort of Will except when in the 
presence of conflicting tendencies of my involuntary thought-activities. 
Moreover, our generalisation accords with an observation of William 
James on that part of an involuntary train of thought which is most 
open to examination: namely, the final act. After multiplying 

* W. James, loc. cit. Vol. 11, pp. 524, 525. 
t Loc. cit. Vol. II, pp. 534, 535. 
X Loc. cit. Vol. II, p. 527. 
§ See above, pp. 81 et seq. 



142 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 7. 6 

examples of ideo-motor action, shewing that the final act of a train 
of thought ordinarily takes place without an effort of Will, he sums 
up his discussion in words which we have already* quoted and which 
we may now summarise: The presence in consciousness of an image 
of a movement brings about the actual movement whenever the 
image 'is not kept from so doing by an antagonistic representation 
present simultaneously to the mind.' And he adds; 'the express fiat, 
or act of mental consent to the movement, comes in when the neutral- 
isation of the antagonistic and inhibitory idea is required.' f In fact, 
according to William James, the Will only intervenes at the exposed 
end of a train of thought when there is conflict between the involuntary 
processes at work. 

There is no reason to suppose that the Will intervenes at any 
other point of an involuntary train of thought, except for the same 
reason: namely, to resolve a conflict. But for this reason the Will 
does intervene. Indeed, according to Dr Bernard Hart, the Will — 
the 'subjective appreciation of the forces at war within us, and 
deliberate adoption of a consciously selected line of conduct' — 'may 
be regarded as the rational or ideal solution of a conflict. In fact it 
may be said to provide the only possible solution in the strict sense 
of the word.' J The conflict of which Dr Hart is here writing is due 
to the existence of an interest-system §— or, at least, a complex || — 
whose influence upon the direction of the nervous impulses is antago- 
nistic to that of the other interest-systems and neurograms that make 
up the total neurography of the brain. The manner in which the Will, 
by intensifying excitement in particular systems of arcs, removes this 
antagonism, or, as we may say, introduces harmony between such 
conflicting interest-systems, will be considered very shortly^. 

* On p. 140, above. f Loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 526. 

X Loc. cit. p. 79. Cf. also J. C. Fluegel, B. J. P. Vol. viii (1917), p. 489. 
§ Above, p. 63. I! Above, p. 61. 

^ In Chapter 9, below. 



CHAPTER 8 
PURPOSE 

§ I. Ptirpose-Neurograms. 

Meanwhile, something must be said of those neurograms, or systems 
of neurograms, which correspond to what we have described* as 'the 
soul's purpose ' ; for many, if not most, of the conflicts that demand 
the Will's intervention are due to lack of harmony between these 
neurograms and other interest-systems. 

Mr Lewisham, the youthful schoolmaster in Mr Wells' novel, had 
pinned on to the wall of his room a list of the South Kensington 
examinations he was going to pass at various specified dates and of 
other intended achievements during a period of years. In fact, 
Mr Lewisham literally 'mapped out his career.' Unfortunately (or, 
perhaps, fortunately) Love came into his life. The tale describes the 
conflicts between his carefully and elaborately thought out purposes 
on one side, and this new interest on the other. Now Mr Lewisham 
was not exceptional in planning his life ahead, but only in the degree 
in which he did so. All of us in some degree make or accept plans for 
the future. But men and women differ greatly in the amount of 
attention they devote to future events, in the rate at which they 
discount the future, in the degree in which they work with distant 
objects in view (as opposed to living 'from hand to mouth'). It is 
these plans for the future that constitute the soul's purposes. 

These purposes may be classified in various ways: according to 
the manner in which they are formed, according to the matter to 
which they relate, according to the time when their realisation becomes 
due, and so on. But all of them have certain features in common. 
For example, every one of my present purposes, whatever the date 
for its fulfilment, is represented in my brain by a neurogramf so 

* On p. 141, above. But see footnote * on p. 100, where we pointed out that 
the soul may have a structure to which the neurography corresponds only 
imperfectly, in which case the soul may be said to possess purposes that are 
not yet represented by neurograms. Since, however, to every psychosis there 
corresponds a neurosis (according to our first law), every one of my purposes of 
which I have ever been conscious — or, briefly, every one of my conscious purposes 
— will be represented in my neurography. And, as stated on p. 144 below, it is 
with these conscious purposes only that we are concerned in this chapter. 

t See footnote above. 



144 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 8. l 

connected with my neurogram of the signal — whether the arrival of 
a certain time or the occurrence of a certain event — that, when in 
due course the latter neurogram is excited, the excitement will tend 
to spread to the neurogram of the purpose and the purpose will, 
therefore, tend to be realised. If we speak of all the neurograms con- 
nected to my neurogram for future time as forming my 'future' 
interest-system, we may thus describe this first common property of 
all purposes : Every purpose has a corresponding neurogram belonging 
to one's 'future' interest-system*. 

Then again every purpose must, at some time or other (at least 
when the purpose-neurogram was formed), have occupied the focus 
of consciousness!. True, the neurography of every young person 
contains neurograms which may some day be excited through the 
appropriate signal-neurogram, when (as in the case of the child whom 
William James saw frightened by a railway train J) his unforeseen 
conduct will cause him surprise. But such conduct, being not only 
unintentional but unforeseen, cannot be described as belonging to the 
individual's purposes. The same is true of those actions which may 
be performed under the influence of hypnotic suggestion without being 
foreseen by the hypnotised subject. In fact, we restrict our use of 
the term 'purposes' to conscious purposes: purposes that have at 
some time or other occupied the focus of consciousness. 

We might further restrict 'purposes' in what follows to denote 
only willed purposes : purposes which the Will originally brought into 
the focus of consciousness and whose neurograms owe much of their 
depth to the Will's intensification of their excitement when the 
purposes in question were first willed and afterwards voluntarily 
confirmed. Such a further restriction may, at first sight, seem to 
conform to the use of the word 'purpose' in everyday speech. We 
have already § spoken of the common identification of purpose with 
Will. But, if we reflect upon the origin of the purposes which we hold 
most dear, we shall find that comparatively few of them are directly 
due to acts of Will. When the twelve-year-old son of a Cambridge 
graduate says that he intends in due course to proceed to his father's 
University, his purpose may be definite enough but is by no means 
necessarily due to an act of his youthful Will. To follow in his father's 
steps may well present itself to him as the only right and proper 
thing to do. He approves the purpose, but does not will it. What 

* See below, p. 146. 

t See footnote * to preceding page. 

t See footnote ^ on p. 138, above. § Above, p. 98. 



II. 8. 1 PURPOSE 145 

this approval involves we shall discuss directly. Meanwhile we observe 
that the approved purpose to follow his father to Cambridge is no 
less a conscious purpose, satisfying the conditions we have just laid 
down, than is a willed purpose to learn to swim next summer or to 
pass an examination this term. 

Purposes, whether willed or merely approved, may be divided 
into two groups consisting respectively of purposes to do (or at least 
to think) something and of purposes to abstain from doing (or from 
thinking) something. The former we may describe as 'positive' 
purposes, the latter as 'negative.' We shall find it useful to have 
some notion of the neurographic correlatives* of these two kinds of 
purposes. 

When a hypnotised person is told by the hypnotist (or operator) 
to do so-and-so at such-and-such a future time and, having recovered 
from the hypnotic trance, acts at the appointed time in accordance 
with the operator's suggestion (of which, in his normal conscious 
state, he has no knowledge), the neurographic mechanism may be 
very simple. It need consist of no more than the neurogram for the 
signal and the neurogram for the deed so connected that when, on 
the occurrence of the signal, the former neurogram is excited, the 
excitement will spread to the latter, thus bringing the act about. But 
this system of two neurograms is detached or dissociated from the 
systems of arcs whose excitement accompanies the main stream of 
consciousness. 

We should expect the neurogram of a conscious purpose to form 
part of a far more complex system of associated neurograms. For 
not only must the neurogram of a conscious purpose have drained 
the impulse from all excited arcs on at least one occasion (when the 
purpose occupied the focus of consciousness) and so have become 
connected with all those arcs, but it may also have been often re- 
excited in whole or in part (as the purpose has from time to time been 
remembered and reflected upon), and on each of these occasions it 
will have acquired new connexions. A certain difliculty may trouble 
us at this point. It may be described and removed by considering 
a simple illustration. Suppose my purpose is to go for a walk at 
three o'clock. The corresponding neurogram will have elements 
corresponding to myself, to a future time (three o'clock), and to a 
walk. Now why is it that, as I reflect upon this purpose at, say, 
two o'clock, the excitement spreading to the walk-element of my 
purpose-neurogram does not result in the ideo-motor act of starting 
* I.e. 'of the neurograms that correspond to....' 

G. E. 10 



146 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 8. l 

for a walk now? The answer is, briefly, because my purpose is not 
to go for a walk now, but at three o'clock. This answer does not, 
however, remove the difficulty, which only disappears when we 
observe that the true purpose is not to-go-for-a-walk but to-wait- 
until-three-o'clock-and-then-to-go-for-a-walk. The ideo-motor result 
of giving my undivided attention to this purpose at any time before 
three is 'to-wait... '; and this is what I do. The apparent difficulty 
in question then arises from our tendency to economise thinking by 
substituting the end of a purpose for its entirety : a proceeding which, 
from our present point of view, is just as foolish as to regard getting 
up from a meal, to which one has just sat down, as equivalent to eating 
the meal and then rising from table *. We have, therefore, to recognise 
that the neurogram of a purpose contains, as an essential part of 
itself, elements that correspond to the lapse of time (or to the occur- 
rence of a sequence of events) antecedent to the final act, which 
completes the accomplishment of the purpose. In so far, then, as 
the lapse of future time is a condition precedent to the fulfilment of 
all purposes, the neurograms of all purposes have in common elements 
that correspond to future timef. Thus all purpose-neurograms, since 
they possess common elements, may be conceived as forming part 
of a 'future' interest-system. And since some idea of myself enters 
into all my purposes, the neurogram of my ' self-regarding sentiment ' I 
also forms part of my future-interest-system. So we recognise, in 
my purpose-neurogram, elements § A, T, and 5 (say), corresponding 
respectively to the proposed action, A (going for a walk, we have 
supposed), to the future time, T, at which the action is to be per- 
formed, and to myself, S. 

Something must next be said about the neurograms that corre- 
spond to negative purposes. What is the neurographic correlative 
of my purpose to abstain from doing this or to avoid thinking of 
that? We observe first that the surest way to avoid doing something 
is to avoid thinking of the deed; for we have seen|| how the thought 

* If any reader still feels a difficulty, let him reflect upon the difference 
between neurograms for 'take the first turning to the right' and for 'take the 
second turning to the right.' 

f We can think of the future, as of the past. To future time, or to past time, 
there must be systems of arcs that correspond and the excitement of which 
accompanies thoughts of the future, or of the past. But the arcs, or neurograms 
(since they have been deepened by experience), that correspond to the past are 
rich in associations, while those that correspond to the future form an almost 
isolated system until purposes have been formed. 

X Cf. W. McDougall : ' Symposium on Instinct and Emotion ' (Proc. Aristotelian 
Society), p. 40. 

§ The following notation is that described on p. 70 above and on p. 190 below. 

II Above, pp. 140, 142. 



II. 8. 1 PURPOSE 147 

of the deed, if left in undisputed occupation of the focus of conscious- 
ness, will quickly be followed by the deed itself, performed as an 
ideo-motor act. Accordingly, we need not distinguish further between 
negative purposes whose concern is with action and negative purposes 
whose concern is with thought. The neurogram that corresponds to 
my purpose never to think of a certain thing (which we may represent 
by A) must evidently include the neurogram A as one of its elements. 
But if my purpose is not-to-think-of-A-at-such-and-such-a-time, then 
my purpose-neurogram must also include an element corresponding 
to the time in question. The time element will be related to the 
remainder of the purpose-neurogram in the manner already discussed. 
We may, for the moment, leave it out of account, and consider the 
simpler case of my (negative) purpose never to think of A. For the 
realisation of this purpose it is necessary that, whenever excitement 
is about to spread to the neurogram A, or at least before the excite- 
ment of A has reached a sufficient degree of intensity to make A 
drain the impulses, and so to make some* thought-activity ^ — an 
idea of A — come into the focus of my consciousness, something should 
happen in my brain to divert the excitement from A . 

If now A were intimately hnked with some other neurogram (0, 
say) such that its (O's) stimulation, even in a slight degree, brought 
about a quasi-explosive f discharge of excitement through 0, so rapid 
and so violent as to cause to drain all the active arcs almost in- 
stantaneously, the result would be that, whenever an idea of A tended 
to appear in consciousness, ^ would occur instead. Moreover, on each 
occasion when drained the impulses, would form direct connexions 
with the other active neurograms besides deepening its connexion 
with A ; and, since these other active neurograms would include those 
through whose connexions with A the excitement had spread to A on 
that occasion, would thus gradually become directly connected with 
all the neurograms (A^, A^, ..., A^) with which A is connected and 
through which alone A may be excited. The process would continue, 
becoming connected to the neurograms ^n, A^^, •", A^i, A. 22, ■■■ , 

connected with A^, A 2, The final result would be that, not only 

all ideas of A, but all their associated thought-activities would be 

* We have pointed out above (p. 47) that, there may be many different ideas 
(thought-activities) %, %' , 31", ... of an object A corresponding to different 
distributions of excitement in the neurogram A . 

t Cf. the case of the lover's tap on the window quoted above (p. 78) from 
Wilham James, whose explanation how so faint a stimulus to a system of arcs 
(corresponding to O, not to ^, in the text) may cause that system to drain the 
impulse, is that 'it finds a nerve-centre half ready in advance to explode.' (Loc. 
cit. Vol. I, p. 450. Italics mine.) 



148 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 8. l 

excluded from consciousness: the whole interest-system of which 
A formed part would tend to become 'repressed* or 'censored,'* and 
A would not become even sHghtly excited f. 

Now William James has observed that ' Some persons can volun- 
tarily empty their minds and "think of nothing." With many, as 
Professor Exner remarks of himself, this is the most efficacious means 
of falling asleep.' :|: Let us represent by the system of arcs whose 
excitement accompanies the process of ' emptying the mind,' and let 
us describe the process as the ©-process. The process, or at least its 
motor and sensorial elements, differ in different individuals. In some 
' This curious state of inhibition can for a few moments be produced 
at will by fixing the eyes on vacancy.' § The (©-process in another 
case has been thus described : 

When in waking tipies I thus dismiss a thought I generally make a rapid 
but suddenly stopped turn of my head from that position which is natural 
to me in thinking to a rather forced and tense posture and... a number of 
muscles in the upper part of the body are held rather rigid ; and the resulting 
complex sensory experience is very clearly apprehended. Even upon dis- 
missing insurgent thoughts in order to go to sleep, I notice in myself 
attention to the sensations arising from respiratory movements and the 
like||. 

In the present writer's own case, the ©-process produces the following 
sensations: closing the eyelids, turning the eye-balls upwards as if 
to make doubly sure of not seeing, closing and shghtly compressing 
the lips, sharply inhaling through the nose, and (less certainly) a quick 
turning of the head to one side^. 

We have, then, in the ©-process, whatever its form in any individual 
person, a mechanism sufficient gradually to render him oblivious to 
an object A and all its associations in normal consciousness, when 
once has been connected, voluntarily or involuntarily, with A. 

* In a dream, excitement may perhaps spread to A by some other route than 
those afforded hy A^, ..., A„, the neurograms of the associations of ^ in waking 
consciousness. Thus A may at least begin to be excited before the ©-process (see 
below) begins to operate. 

t Cf . J . C. Fluegel : ' Repression is apt to extend from the clement of thought 
which was originally its object to other elements that are associated with it, the 
associations along which the repression extends being often, moreover, of the 
superficial type so characteristic of the Unconscious.' (B. J. P. Vol. viii (1917), 

P- 493) 

X Loc. cit. Vol. I, p. 404. 

§ W. James, loc. cit. p. 404. 

II T. Loveday, B. J . P. Vol. vii, No. 2, p. 162. 

^ In making voluntary use of this process for the purpose of falling asleep, 
I am conscious of two stages. In the first I feel the sensations described in the 
text. In the second stage I relax the effort involved in voluntarily stimulating the 
(©-process. 



II. 8. 1 PURPOSE 149 

The neurogram of a negative purpose never to think of A need include 
no more than A and connected together; and to A and must also 
be connected the neurogram of a future time, T, to form the neuro- 
gram of a purpose not to think of A at time T. 

An important question concerning purpose-neurograms is whether 
or not they tend to be rich in affective-conative elements. Let us 
alter our illustration of a positive purpose, and suppose that my 
purpose is to play in an exciting football match at three o'clock, 
instead of to go for a comparatively dull walk at that hour. Then the 
element that we have denoted by A in my purpose-neurogram is 
enriched by affective-conative elements. For that reason both A and 
the neurogram as a whole are more likely to be excited*, and I am 
more likely in consequence to reflect upon and reinforce my purpose. 
Moreover, when the time comes to change for the game, an idea ^ of 
it is more likely to remain in the focus of my consciousness and the 
appropriate movements to follow as an ideo-motor act. For both 
these reasons, the addition to A of suitable affective-conative elements 
strengthens my purpose and renders its fulfilment more likely. 

On the other hand the reinforcement of A in the negative-purpose 
neurogram we described, by tending to bring ^ into the focus of 
consciousness, renders necessary a deeper connexion between A and 
to secure the effective exclusion of ^ from consciousness, or in 
other words, to prevent me from thinking of A. If the inhibition of 
thought about A is due to an effort of Will — that is, if Will formed 
the connexion between A and — the effort must be the greater, the 
richer A is in affective-conative elements. 

§ 2. Formation of Purpose-Neurograms. 
We have now to consider how purpose-neurograms come to be 
formed. Already, when defining conscious purposes, we have dis- 
tinguished t between ' willed ' purposes on the one hand and ' approved ' 
(but not willed) purposes on the other. Let us first consider the 
formation of willed purposes and their neurograms. We recall 
Wilham James' dictum, already | quoted, that 'the soul presents 
nothing herself; creates nothing; is at the mercy of the material forces 
for all possibilities^; but amongst these possibilities she selects; and 
by reinforcing one and checking others, she figures... as something 

* See above, pp. 91, 92. f See above, p. 144. 

I Above, p. 100. But see the first footnote to that page. 

§ Cf. St Paul: 'How shall they believe [by an act of Will] in him of whom 
they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall 
they preach unless they be sent? ' (Romans x. 14, 15.) 



150 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 8. 2 

from which the play gets moral support.' It would follow that a 
willed purpose depends for its inception upon the simultaneous* 
excitement, whether from sensory stimuli (derived, for example, from 
the spoken or written word) or in the course of a train of voluntary 
or involuntary thought-activities f, of the various elements that are 
to form part of the purpose-neurogram. The Will may then reinforce 
the excitement in these elements so as to deepen them and connect t 
them together, thus forming the neurogram of a willed purpose §. 

Willed purposes, especially if their neurograms are rich in affective- 
conative elements, may be of altogether paramount importance. For 
example, the act of faith by which some people accept religion — the 
effort of Will by which they decide to act on a hypothesis with a view 

* The excitement is not instantaneous but waxes, reaches a maximum, and 
then wanes. William James has given reasons for supposing that the period — 
'the specious present' — during which a neurogram remains excited is generally 
about twelve seconds. Our use of the phrase ' simultaneous excitement ' therefore 
means that the periods during which the various elements in question are excited 
overlap. 

I There may also be other ways — hardly to be described in William James' 
words as 'material forces' — in which the elements of a purpose might be presented 
to the soul. It is not inconceivable that another Soul — God, if you will — or other 
souls should communicate directly with our souls. In such a case it is possible 
to imagine that the other soul which communicates with mine does so either 
directly, soul to soul, or indirectly, by first creating excitement in my brain. 
Since, however, my own soul cannot create, but only reinforce, excitement in 
my brain it is not to be supposed that any other human soul has power to create 
excitement in my brain; but, if we choose, we may suppose that God has it, and 
sometimes exercises it. It is, however, simpler (and therefore preferable) to 
suppose that all purely psychical communications proceed direct from soul to 
soul. If our first law applies, such a communication reaching my soul must, if 
and when it affects my consciousness, be accompanied by excitement in some of 
the neural arcs of my brain. And, if we regard the vision which led to the conver- 
sion of St Paul as a psychical communication of the kind now in question, we have 
in his subsequent blindness some evidence of a neural accompaniment to the 
psychical process. 

J The connexion is effected by drainage, in the manner already described. 
We have to suppose that, as the Will intensifies the excitement in the various 
elements that are to form the purpose-neurogram, the excitement in one or other 
element becomes sufficient to cause that element to drain the others and so to 
get connected to them. 

§ Negative as well as positive willed purposes may thus be formed by rein- 
forcement. Although in William James' dictum just quoted for the second time, 
he speaks of the soul reinforcing some possibilities and checking others, our fourth 
law has only postulated power for the Will to reinforce (but not to check). Checking 
may, in fact, be seen to be a particular case of reinforcing. Thus, when a negative 
purpose — e.g. ' not to drink alcoholic beverages ' — is present to consciousness, there 
must be an element in consciousness corresponding to 'not' as well as elements 
corresponding to the beverages, to drinking, and to the thinker himself: otherwise 
the only purpose that could be formed from these elements would be, 'I will 
drink alcoholic beverages whenever I get the chance.' We have only to suppose 
that the 'not '-element in consciousness is accompanied by some excitement of 
the neurogram we have called O. By reinforcing excitement in this neurogram 
at the same time as in the other elements in question, the Will may form a negative- 
purpose-neurogram of the kind already described. 



II. 8. 2 PURPOSE 151 

to verifying it — is in many cases the cardinal and culminating fact 
in their whole lives. It is nevertheless true that, as we have indicated, 
the great majority of our purpose-neurograms are formed by the flow 
of neural impulses which, like most neural impulses, are directed by 
interest-systems, including especially instinct-systems, rather than 
by Will. In short, most of our purposes are not formed by an effort 
of Will. They appear to us absolutely appropriate and natural ' and 
selbstverstdndlich, an "a priori synthesis" of the most perfect sort,' 
needing no explanation. 'It takes, in short, what Berkeley calls a 
mind debauched by learning to carry the process of making the 
natural seem strange, so far as to ask for the why of any' ordinary 
human purpose, formed under the influence of instinct or other 
interest. The common man can only say, ' of course the ordinary little 
boy purposes to follow his father's trade when he grows up; of course 
the ordinary little girl purposes to become the mother of a family; 
of course the youth purposes to win the love of the maiden, that 
beautiful soul clad in that perfect form, so palpably and flagrantly 
made from all eternity to be loved ! ' * 

To come within our definition of a purpose f, all these 'unwilled' 
intentions must have at some time occupied the focus of conscious- 
ness, receiving the full Hght of attention. At the moment when any 
such intention is first recognised, the Will may intervene to repress 
it if disapproved, and perhaps to strengthen it — to deepen its neuro- 
gram — if approved. But, if the Will does not intervene, the mere 
fact that the purpose has passed the censor without being repressed 
constitutes it an approved purpose: that is, a purpose conflict with 
which will cause the Will to intervene J. And this intervention will 
result from conflict with an approved (or a willed) purpose, whether 
the antagonistic influence upon the direction of the stream of thought 
is due to outside events (i.e. external difficulties in the way of the 
fulfilment of the purpose) or to inside interest-systems. 

In this account of the nature and origin of purpose-neurograms, 

we have distinguished between purposes that originate in an act of 

Will and those that are approved without effort so soon as they are 

presented to consciousness. This distinction has facilitated description. 

In fact, however, the two classes of purposes — those that are willed 

and those that are merely approved — are by no means mutually 

exclusive. For, in the first place, purpose-neurograms, the formation 

* Most of this wording is taken from William James' account of instinctive 
(and reflex) acts. (Loc. cit. Vol. 11, pp. 386, 387.) 
t On p. 144 above. 
X See above, p. 141. 



152 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 8. 2 

of which was achieved by an effort of Will (reinforcing excitement), 
include, as a rule, large elements already formed by other means, the 
effort of Will having achieved no more than the synthesis of pre- 
existing elements into the new purpose-neurograms. We may repeat 
in this connexion that the willed purpose-neurogram which contains 
no affective-conative elements will probably be but a poor and transi- 
tory affair, representing a feeble and easily forgotten purpose: the 
ephemeral character of mere good resolutions that are unaccompanied 
by some instinctive drive — some conative element — is proverbial. On 
the other hand, whenever a conflict causes the Will to intervene in 
support of a merely approved purpose, the act of Will (reinforcing ex- 
citement) deepens the purpose-neurogram, which thereafter is, partly 
at least, due to Will. When Professor Ramsay Muir tells us that 
'Self-government had throughout the modern age been a matter of 
habit and practice with the British peoples; now [1815-78] it became 
a matter of theory and belief,' * he furnishes us with an example of 
an approved purpose becoming, partly at any rate, willed. 

§ 3. Influence of Purposes on the Stream of Thought. 

We have spoken of the future-interest-system which is made up 
of all purpose-neurograms (except perhaps the neurograms of general 
negative purposes : 'I will never think of so-and-so ') f . We have 
remarked % further that purpose-neurograms for the most part include 
as part of themselves the ' self-regarding sentiment ' neurogram, if we 
may so describe the neurogram of the self, with all the instinct- 
neurograms to which it has become intimately connected. Moreover, 
the neurograms of the stronger among willed purposes tend, as we 
have seen, to include other affective-conative elements in addition to 
those of the self -regarding sentiment. Finally, purpose-neurograms, 
the origin of which is due to instinct or to interest rather than to 
Will, are evidently connected to (and so may be said to include) the 
affective-conative elements whose excitement first brought them into 
being. For all these reasons, the future-interest-system is apt to contain 
a large proportion of affective-conative elements. In other words, 
our interest in the future, if intense and wide (i.e. if our purposes are 
strong and far-reaching), will tend to stir our emotions in no small 
degree. 

This future-interest-system shares with our other interest-systems, 
and with incoming sense-impressions, the business of guiding our 

* The Expansion of Europe, p. 115. 

\ See above, p. 147. % See above, p. 146. 



II. 8. 3 PURPOSE 153 

thought-activities during involuntary thinking. But the influence of 
the future-interest-system upon thought, and especially (through 
thought) upon conduct, is greater than that of most other interest- 
systems equally deep and wide; and for the following reasons. 

In the first place, a future-interest-system influences conduct 
directly, while the influence of other interest-systems is in general 
only indirect. For example, suppose that incorporated in my future- 
interest is a purpose to be present at Putney on boat race day. During 
the weeks before the race, my newspapers have directed my attention 
to the practice and the prospects of the crews ; and on each occasion I 
am reminded of my purpose, on which I see no reason to go back. On 
each occasion therefore my purpose is deepened, and, as its associations 
with the various reminders multiply, widened. Finally the day comes. 
Railway advertisements, newspaper posters, even the horses — deco- 
rated with ribbons of one or other of the rival blues — let me know 
that the time has come for my purpose to be fulfilled. And fulfilled 
it accordingly is, without effort of Will on my part. Indeed, no small 
effort of my Will, or some altogether exceptional sense-impression 
from outside, would then be necessary to prevent my purpose from 
being fulfilled. On the other hand, an interest in rowing or in our 
ancient Universities or even in a member of one of the crews, while 
before the day it might help to form a purpose to see the race, would 
not, apart from such a purpose and perhaps in face of some contrary 
purpose for spending the day, take me down the Fulham Road and 
over Putney Bridge when the day arrived. 

In the second place, the future-interest-system exercises a potent 
influence upon thought — and especially upon conduct — because of its 
tendency to be associated with the thought-activities that immediately 
precede, and lead to, actions. We are about to see* that associations 
of this kind would cause the future-interest-system to influence 
actions in a high degree. But, first, we must observe that the 
future-interest-system does tend to become associated with ideas of 
actions. It does so because action that is neither reflex nor habitual 
will not follow immediately upon the appearance of an idea of it 
in consciousness; for in such a case there will be no well-worn 
channels by which the nervous impulses can escape (down the 
pyramidal tract, producing movement) from the neurogram whose 
excitement accompanies the idea in question. In such a case, 
therefore, the excitement has time to diffuse from this neurogram, 
thus exciting a number of connected neurograms, before it is 

* On the next page. 



154 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 8. a 

finally drained. In other words, associations of the action thought 
of are awakened before the action takes place (if indeed it ever does 
take place, for these associations may lead to its being inhibited). 
Among the neurograms to which the excitement diffuses, are some 
that correspond to consequences of the action. These consequences 
are in the future, and their neurograms therefore contain elements 
that correspond to future time. It follows, from the corollary to our 
third law, that the future-interest-system — especially if it be wide 
(covering the whole, or almost the whole, of future time) as well as 
rich in emotional elements — will tend to attract the impulse and so 
to influence every action that is not reflex or habitual or otherwise* 
due to the existence of low-resistance, or 'canalised,' paths (but when 
such paths exist, the excitement is drained along them towards 
the pyramidal tract without leaving time for the diffu.sion process to 
occur). No other interest-system is in the same position, tending to 
attract the impulse before any ' uncanalised ' action can occur. 

Thirdly, on account of its richness in affective-conative elements, 
the future-interest-system exercises a greater influence upon thought, 
and so upon conduct, than that of most other interest-systems equally 
wide and deep. That the presence of affective-conative elements in an 
interest-system increases the influence of that system upon the flow 
of excitement through the brain we have already seenf. And we have 
also seen J that the future-interest-system tends to contain a large 
proportion of these elements: a fact of which confirmatory evidence 
is furnished § by Dr Webb's investigation entitled Character and 
Intelligence, the most elaborate attempt yet made to assign numerical 
values to the inter-relations of psychical qualities. 

For these reasons, then, a wide and deep future-interest-system is 
in a peculiarly strong || position for guiding thought and conduct. 

* In particular, actions towards which instincts strive often follow immediately 
— the excitement pursuing innately canalised paths (i.e. paths whose low resistance 
is innate) — upon the occurrence of an image of them in consciousness. That 
instinctive actions are apt to occur without regard for consequences is well 
recognised. 

t Above, pp. 91, 92. X Above, p. 152. § See Appendix B, § 11. 

II A further example of the potent influence which purpose-neurograms, and 
the future-interest-system which they help to form, exercise upon thought and 
conduct has been noted by Dr McDougall : ' that a conscious conative effort having 
once been made (an intention or resolution having once been formed, the will 
having been consciously set towards a given end), the conative process continues 
or may continue at work sub-consciously for a period of time to which we can set 
no definite limit. The " Aufgahe," the intention, may continue to play a prominent, 
a predominant, part, even when it has passed altogether from clear consciousness.' 
{American Journal of Insanity, Vol. lxix, p. 870. See also above, pp. 100, loi.) 
And Freud and members of his school have demonstrated the immense influence 
which sub-conscious conations exercise upon our mental life and conduct. 



IT. 8. 3 PURPOSE 155 

Where it exists it constitutes, as we shall see*, one of the most 
important elements in character; and without it strength of character 
is impossible. 

§ 4. Dr Webb's Group Factor in Character Qualities. 

Dr Webb obtained statistical evidence of the high degree in which 
certain character qualities are influenced by purpose. We have already 
seen t how his investigation led to the discovery of a new group factor |, 
Cleverness (c), which along with g enters into several intellectual 
qualities, some of which are compounded of g and c alone according 
to the vector law. Dr Webb himself described § another group factor 
which, along with g, enters into several purpose qualities ||, notably 
those numbered 34, 33, 18, 20, 21, 32, and 28 in the above Table III ^. 
So far as this group of purpose qualities is alone concerned, neither 
g nor this new factor is a single general factor within the meaning of 
our definition **. But any large series of sufficiently dissimilar mental 
tests may, as we have said, be so expressed that g and specific factors 
enter into all of them, while this new factor, like our factor Cleverness, 
enters as a group factor to an extent which is insignificant in all but a 
small proportion of them. 

Dr Webb discusses the nature of his new factor 'w,' 'whose 
generality would appear to extend so widely in character,'! f and re- 
cognises that it is in some close relation to 'persistence of motives.' 
He adds that ' this conception may be understood to mean consistency 
of action resulting from deliberate volition, or will.' %% ^^^ will, used in 
this sense, is liable to be confused with the word as used to describe 
an effort of will. It would perhaps be better to describe the new 
(group) factor as being intimately related to Purpose §§. 

* See below, Chapter 17. 

t On p. 119 and in § 3 of Chapter 7 above. 

% In the present section we shall treat a factor (e.g. 'c ') and the measure {c) 
of that factor as interchangeable terms. Most of the section is taken, with small 
verbal changes, from a paper by the present writer on ' General Ability, Clever- 
ness and Purpose,' published in the B. J. P. for May, 1919 (pp. 359-362). 

§ Loc. cit. pp. 58, 60. But, as we are about to observe, the factor which 
Dr Webb described, and measured by w, is not the same as the new group factor, 
/, defined overleaf as independent both of g and c, that is here in question. We 
shall however see that w and / have much in common. 

II See below, pp. 157, 158. 

Tf On p. 126. Dr Webb found evidence of the presence of his group factor in 
qualities numbered 4, 11, and 31 also. See Garnett, B. J. P. loc. cit. pp. 359, 360. 
** In § 3 of Appendix B: see footnote § on p. 477 below. 
ft Webb, loc. cit. p. 60. J J Loc. cit. p. 60. 

§§ It is necessary, as we have pointed out (on p. 98), clearly to distinguish 
the momentary effort of Will from the persistence of Purpose that in English is 
so often called by the same name. For example, when in the Lord's Prayer we 
say 'Thy will be done,' we mean 'Thy purposes be fulfilled.' 



156 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION 



II. 8. 4 



The new group factor, /*, as defined in the next paragraph, is 
independent of g^j. It is not the same as our new factor Cleverness; 
for the calculated correlations between the seven qualities in which 
the new factor has been shewn to enter as a group factor, and Clever- 
ness, are distinctly low, being respectively: 



No. in 

Dr Webb's 

schedule 

34 
33 
i8 

20 
21 

4 
II 



Table IV. 



Name of Quality- 
Tendency not to abandon tasks from mere changeability 
Tendency not to abandon tasks in face of obstacles 
Kindness, on principle ... 
Trustworthiness ... 
Conscientiousness... 
Readiness to become angry 
Eagerness for admiration 



Correlation 

with 
' Cleverness ' 

-•o6 

39 
40 
07 
05 
15 
18 



There is therefore a third factor, /, independent both of g and c, 
which enters into the constitution of a number of character qualities + . 

We have seen§ how the degree in which a person possesses any 
quality that depends, according to the vector law, on two independent 
factors only may be represented by a single point P in a (two-dimen- 
sional) diagram such as Fig. 8. Thus, if the person possesses the two 
independent factors in degrees g and c respectively, and if the point 
P is chosen to lie a distance g east of a fixed point in the diagram 
and a distance c north of 0, then the degree, q, in which that person 
possesses any (intellectual) quality that depends on g and c only is 
the distance of P from measured in a direction || which distinguishes 
that particular quality. 

Now, just as in two dimensions — a not-too-large expanse of sea, 
for example — the position of a ship is known when we know its 
distance east (or west) and its distance north (or south) of a fixed 

* See footnote § to p. 155 above and p. 158 below. 

f But, in discussing its nature, Dr Webb was more concerned with the quality 
which we are going to call Purpose, and of which the axis Op in Fig. 9 below is 
not at right angles to Og, than with the quality, independent of g, of which the 
axis, 0/in that figure, is at right angles to Og. See also footnote ^ to p. loi. 

X But the character qualities in question may depend on more than these 
three independent factors. Suppose we take g and c as the first two independent 
factors. Then we may express the measure, q, of any of these character qualities 
by means of equation (13) in § 10 of Appendix B: namely 

9 = 'ygq-g + ^cg-C + I3X3 + ... + IjvXjV •••(I3) 

where x^, .... Xj^r measure the remaining independent factors. We may then define 
the new factor, /or Xg, whose existence was proved by Dr Webb, as that which 
gives the highest average value of l^ for all the ^'s in question. 

§ On p. 121, above. See also §9 of Appendix B (p. 484 below). 

II The direction in question is tan-^ ^cq/f'gq north of east, where Vcq and tg^ 
are the correlations of the quality in question with 'c' and 'g' respectively. 



II. 8. 4 



PURPOSE 



157 



point, the position of an aeroplane, in three-dimensional space, is 
known when we know its distances east (or west), north (or south), 
and above (or, if it happens to be flying in the Jordan valley, below) 
a fixed point on the sea level. And, just as before, if a person possesses 
three independent qualities in degrees g, c, and / respectively, and if 
the point P is chosen to lie a distance g east of a fixed point 0, a 
distance c north of O, and a distance / above 0, then the degree, q, in 
which that person possesses any quality that depends, according to 
the vector law*, on g, c, and/ only, is the distance of P from measured 
in a direction! which distinguishes that particular quality. 

So we may construct a (three- 
dimensional) diagram, Fig. 9, in 
which we represent the new group 
factor % by an axis Ox^ or Of at 
right angles to the plane of our 
former diagram (Fig. 8)§. Then the 
axes corresponding to the seven 
qualities in which the existence of 
this new factor has been demon- 
strated, and of some others— not- 
ably No. 32 (Degree with which he 
works with distant objects in view) 
and No. 28 (Extent of mental work 
bestowed upon usual studies) into 
which Dr Webb's new factor also 

enters in a high degree || — will lie in or near the plane /O^g', since all 
these qualities have small correlations with Cleverness, the axis (Oc) 
of which is perpendicular to that plane. 

Of the seven quahties (Nos. 34, 33, 18, 20, 21, 4, and 11) named in 
Table IV, the first five have high positive correlations with each other 
and with the two quahties (numbered 32 and 28 in Table III) to 
which reference has just been made; and all these seven qualities 
(Nos. 34, 33, 18, 20, 21, 32, 28) have negative correlations with the 
last two quahties (Nos. 4 and 11) in Table IV ^. Let us now for 
shortness describe the seven qualities (Nos. 34, 33, 18, 20, 21, 32, and 
28) having high positive correlations with each other as 'purpose' 




Fig. 9i 



* Its expression in this case is q =rgg . g + rqc . c +rgf . f where as before the 
r's are the correlations of '^' with 'g,' 'c' and '/ respectively. 

•j- In the language of solid geometry, this direction is defined by the direction- 
cosines, Vqg, Vqc and rgf. 

t Defined in footnote | on p. 156. § On p. 121. 

jl See Webb, loc. cit. p. 59. t Webb, loc. cit. Table VI. 



158 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 8. 4 

qualities, a description suggested by the names of these quahties in 
Table III above and by the further particulars of the qualities in 
question given by Dr Webb*. To these seven purpose qualities we 
may, if we please, add the inverses of qualities No. 4 and No. 11 f, 
defined as being measured by the measures of No. 4 and No. 11 
respectively with their signs changed. Suppose that p represents the 
mean position of the points in which the axes of the various purpose 
qualities meet any sphere described with as centre. Then, since the 
average correlation of all these nine qualities with Cleverness is very 
small (-04), Op lies very near, if not actually in, the plane /O^: and 
it lies much nearer to Of than to Og. 

We have next to observe % that the new group factor / is not 
identical with the factor for which Dr Webb used the symbol w; for, 
as we shall see, w, although it has much in common with /, has still 
more in common with ^§. In the absence of the analysis in Chapter 7 
above II, and in Appendix B, Dr Webb saw no use in preserving, in the 
definition of his new factor, w, the qualification that it should be 
independent of g. In fact, the definition which we have just given 
of p is probably as near as we can get to the definition which 
Dr Webb would have given to his factor, w, had he been concerned 
with defining it in numerical terms. We shall for the future assume 
that p thus defined is the measure of Dr Webb's new factor. We 
substitute p for his symbol w partly because we have defined p while 
w was not defined, and partly for another reason that will appear 
later: namely that ^ measures Purposefulness. 

It is interesting to observe that, in the case of the London school 
boys whose quahties were also investigated by Dr Webb^, the 
correlation of p with g was found to be markedly less than in the 
case of the men. The number of qualities investigated in the case of 
the boys was less than in the case of the (men) students. Of the men's 
qualities shewing marked correlations with Dr Webb's new factor, 
only six appear in the boys' schedule. The following table gives the 
(total) correlations of the six qualities with g, in the case of the students 
and of the boys respectively : 

* Loc. cit. Appendix II, pp. 84 et seq. 

t See Garnett, B. J. P. loc. cit. p. 360. 

% Cf, footnote § on p. 155. 

§ Cf. footnote | on p. 156. 

II See especially § 3 on pp. rig et seq.; and Garnett, Proc. R. S. loc. cit. 

^ See above, p. 120. 



II. 8. 4 PURPOSE 159 

Table V. 
Number in 
students' 
schedule Quality 

34. Tendency not to abandon tasks from mere changeability 
33. Tendency not to abandon tasks in face of obstacles 
Kindness on principle 
Trustworthiness 
Conscientiousness ... 
Mental work in usual studies 



Averages 



Correlation 
with ' g' 


Students 


^ 
Boys 


•45 
•25 
•23 
•28 


•10 

•45 

-•13 

•08 


•22 
•60 


•27 
•44 



38 



The average correlation of these six qualities with g, which is not 
much more than twice the average probable error in the case of the 
boys, is thus more than four times the average probable error in the 
case of the students : a fact which suggests that the correlation between 
g and p tends to increase as years go on*. 

Continuing our investigation of the nature of the quality of which 
the measure is p and which accounts for the partial correlations f 
{g constant) of the purpose qualities named in Table IV and of some 
others, notably No. 32 and No. 28, we first observe that, in the extent 
to which a person's future-interest-system — or system of purpose- 
neurograms, where they a41 form one system — influences thought and 
conduct, we have a factor which must evidently affect a number of 
those qualities and which accounts, qualitatively at least, for their 
mutual correlations in so far as these are not due to their common 
dependence upon g]. A subject whose main interest is in the future, 
rather than in the present or in the past, will on that account work 

* This might indeed have been expected. If p is large in the case of any 
person, we have (see below, p. 161) an indication that he possesses a single wide 
interest of the kind described on p. 244 below and the preceding pages, and there- 
fore (see p. 225) that his g will tend to increase. Moreover, a strong future-interest- 
system, the existence of which as we are about to see is indicated by a large p as 
well as by a large /, will be in frequent conflict with the impulses of the moment, 
and will thus, as we shall also observe in the sequel, have led to the intervention 
of the Will to resolve the conflict and so to the increase of g, if we were right in 
assuming from the evidence on pp. 137, 138 that g is increased by practice in 
concentrating attention, or, what amounts to the same thing, by making efforts of 
will. On the other hand, whoever has strong g will on that account tend to form 
deep purpose-neurograms (see above, p. 150) and so, other things being equal, to 
develop a high degree {p) of Purposefulness. 

f The correlations of qualities, in so far as those correlations are not due to 
the correlations of the qualities with another (say, 'g'), are called the partial 
{g constant) correlations of the qualities. The partial correlation of s and t with 
g constant is given by y _y y 

\^ - r^sg \li -r\' 
where, as usual, r^i denotes the (total) correlation between 5 and t. This is Yule's 
well-known formula. It follows at once from our equation (8) in § 9 of Appendix B. 
(See Garnett, Proc. R. S. loc. cii. p. 98.) 



i6o THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 8. 4 

with a distant object in view*; will not abandon tasks that he has 
once undertaken f ; will act on principle J, his future interest dominating 
the impulse of the moment ; will be consistent (and therefore reliable, 
trustworthy § and conscientious ||) owing to the constant influence 
upon his conduct of the same single future-interest-system; will not 
readily become angry ^ or otherwise quickly change his mood, because 
his mental processes are much influenced by a comparatively constant 
future-interest-system; and will not 'set aside principles for the sake 
of admiration'** or any other merely present satisfaction. 

We have already remarked that Dr Webb, discussing the nature 
of his new factor, shewed that it ' is in some close relation to persistence 
of motives.' That ^ is a measure of the extent to which a future- 
interest-system — or the system of purpose-neurograms, where they 
all form one system — influences thought and conduct, accords with 
this conclusion, as we have just seen. But our suggestion that p 
measures the influence of a single purpose-system upon thought and 
conduct, accounts for certain other facts that remain unexplained if 
we regard Dr Webb's factor merely as a general tendency towards 
'persistency of motives.' ff 

Moreover, our suggestion is consistent with Dr Webb's view that 
the nature of his new ' factor, whose generality would appear to 
extend so widely in character, is in some close relation to "persistence 
of motives ".'J J But it carries us further. For, if it describes p 

* Quality No. 32 in Table III on p. 126 above, 
■f Qualities Nos. 33 and 34. 

J To act on principle is not, of course, the same thing as to do kindness on 
principle (quality No. 18). One might conceivably do unkindness on principle. 
But from the high average partial correlations of 'kindness on principle' we con- 
clude that the principles of most of these training college students in whom ' future 
objective ' (No. 32) and 'religion ' (No. 22) were most strongly developed were such 
as to make them good rather than bad, kind rather than unkind. The same is 
true of the school boys investigated by Dr Webb, and the same is doubtless true 
of most inhabitants of Christian countries. 

§ Quality No. 20. || Quality No. 21. T| Quality No. 4. 

** The words are quoted from a prefect's report on what he understood by 
'eagerness for admiration' (Quality No. 11). See Webb, loc. cit. p. 86. 

ft See § 13 of Appendix B. 

%% We cannot however follow Dr Webb when he adds to the words we have 
just quoted: 'This conception may be understood to mean consistency of action 
resulting from deliberate volition, or iinll.' {Loc. cit. p. 60.) These words follow 
immediately upon those qiioted in the text. Dr Webb adduces no evidence in 
support of his statement that the consistency of action (which is marked by 
trustworthiness, conscientiousness and other qualities having high correlations 
with these) is due to ' deliberate volition ' rather than to one and the same single 
system of purpose-neurograms in the future-interest-system. The formation of 
purpose-neurograms and their influence upon the stream of consciousness is (as 
we saw in § 2 of this chapter) by no means solely due to the operation of deliberate 
volition, or Will. 



II. 8. 4 PURPOSE i6i 

correctly, the presence in a subject's neurography of deep but discon- 
nected purpose-neurograms will not alone suffice to give him a large 
purpose factor, /) ; but, if all his purpose-neurograms form a single future- 
interest-system of the kind that we are about to call endarchical*, 
dominating his whole neurography in the manner described below f, 
and if these purpose-neurograms are deep, his factor -p will then be 
large. That p measures the influence upon thought and conduct of 
a future-interest-system, and especially of the purpose-neurograms 
(which, if very deep, will be its most important constituents), fits 
all the available evidence. Until more evidence is available we shall 
therefore assume that this is the nature of p: or, in short, that p 
measures ' Purposefulness.' So we have, in Dr Webb's investigation, 
further evidence of the influence of purpose on thought and conduct J. 

It follows that /, defined as being independent both of g and c, 
measures the influence of purpose in so far as that influence is not 
due to g or c. But it is hardly, if at all, due to c§. So / measures, 
approximately if not exactly, the influence exercised by purpose 
upon thought and conduct in so far as that influence is not due to 
strength of Will {g), but to neurography alone. 

If now we repeat for our three-dimensional diagram (Fig. 9) || the 
description that we gave for our two-dimensional diagram (Fig. 8) ^ 
by imagining a small solid element SF to move between the three 
axes Of, Og and Oc; and if we consider especially positions oihV near 
the plane cOp; we shall find that exceptional men, whose mental 
qualities, in so far as they depend upon the three independent variables 
measured along Og, Oc and Of, are represented by the points lying 
inside SF, belong to one or other of two well-recognised types**, 
according as SF lies near to Op on the one hand or to Oc on the other. 

It appears, in fact, that the type of temperament tf, which Dr 
Webb and others have contrasted with the purposeful temperament, 
differs from it, not merely in having less than the average degree of 
Purposefulness, but also in having more than the average degree of 
Cleverness. 

* On p. 163. f In Chapter 12, §4. | See also Appendix B, § 13. 

§ The influence of Cleverness is almost (if not quite) negligible since the cor- 
relation — at any rate in the case of Dr Webb's training college students — between p 
and c is very small, if not zero. 

il See above, p. 157. T| See above, p. 121. 

** See Webb, loc. cit. p. 61 ; G. Heymans and E. Wiersma, Beitrage zur speciellen 
Psychologie, p. 436; G. E. Partridge, An Outline of Individual Study, 1910; and 
Garnett, B. J. P. loc. cit. pp. 362 to 364. 

ft For example, William James' 'explosive Italian' {loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 538) 
possessed more than average (i.e. a positive degree of) Cleverness, as well as less 
than average (i.e. a negative degree of) Purposefulness. 



CHAPTER 9 
CONFLICT 

§ I. Opposing Interest-Systems. 

We have now completed our digression* on the origin, nature and 
functions of purpose-neurograms and of the future-interest-system in 
which they tend to become integrated. In the course of this digression 
we have noted the important influence exerted upon thought and 
conduct by the future-interest-system, which, as we have said, owes 
its origin, partly at least, to the operation of Will . We now return to 
the consideration of the direct action of Will in everyday life. 

The normal occasion for the intervention of the Will arises, as we 
saidf, when the involuntary guides of the stream of thought are in 
conflict. The stream of involuntary thought is then obstructed, and 
the obstruction may be of internal or of external origin. We speak 
of obstruction originating internally when a conflict occurs between 
two of the interest-systems that are guiding involuntary thought in 
accordance with our third law and its corollary: in such a case the 
rival interest-systems attract the impulse in different directions, and, 
if the two systems are equally balanced, the intervention of the Will 
is required to intensify the attraction in one direction or in the other, or 
possibly in some third direction different from both. And the obstruc- 
tion originates externally when some sense-impression, arising whether 
from outside or inside the body, tends to attract the impulse in one 
direction, while the interest-system that has been guiding thought 
tends, in an approximately equal degree, to attract it in another. 

We may speak of every conflict as a conflict between two opposing 
interest-systems : it is these interest-systems that attract the impulse 
in two opposite directions. This attraction of the impulse in two 
opposite directions is an essential element in every conflict. 

In order that two interest-systems may be in conflict, they must 
be simultaneously excited, and therefore, if for no other reason, they 
must have some element in common. We can imagine no conflict 
between two interest-systems which have no common element, no 
point of contact. Indeed, whoever will reflect upon his recent ex- 
periences of conflict will recognise that the interest-systems which 
* Chapter 8, beginning on p. 143, above. f Above, p. 141. 



II. 9. 1 CONFLICT 163 

were opposing one another had something in common. Dr Hart, for 
example, iUustrates a conflict by the case of a lover, the object of 
whose passion is already the wife of another man. ' The lover's mind 
will then exhibit two complexes trending in opposite and incompatible 
directions, on the one hand the desire for the woman, on the other 
the opposing tendencies constituted by moral education and fear of 
consequences.'* Here the complexes or interest-systems meet in the 
lover's neurogram for the woman. 

But while two potentially conflicting interest-systems must meet, 
each must have its own separate organisation; they must have one 
common element, but not many. Now, we have saidf that interest- 
systems ordinarily possess such an organisation that the neurograms 
composing the interest-system are on the average more intimately 
interconnected towards the centre of the system than towards its 
periphery; and that therefore J excitement in a neurogram near the 
periphery of the system tends to spread in the direction of increasing 
multiplicity of interconnexions : that is, towards the centre of the 
system. Since the excitement, wherever it originates in such a system, 
will tend to flow towards the centre, the neurograms nearest to the 
centre of the system — neurograms which are on the average the most 
intimately connected — will also, because they are most frequently 
excited, tend to be deepest. On both accounts, the influence which any 
region of the system will exercise upon the flow of excitement will be 
greater, the nearer that region is to the centre of the system. We shall 
have much to do with such systems in the sequel, and shall therefore 
require a name for them. Such a system — and we have just reminded 
ourselves that every interest-system § tends to be organised on these 
Unes — we shall describe as an 'endarchy,' because its innermost 
regions dominate the rest of it: it is ruled from inside. To the con- 
sideration of endarchies we shall shortly return. Meanwhile, we have 
to remark that, if two endarchical interest-systems are in touch at 
some point on their peripheries, the excitement of the systems of 
arcs at the point of contact will tend to flow in the opposing direc- 
tions that lead to the different centres of the two opposing systems. 
This, then, is the neural condition of a conflict : two distinct interest- 
systems having a restricted zone of contact and excited from that 
zone. 

* Lac. cit. p. 78. f See above, p. 94. 

X According to the corollary to our third law on p. 89, above. 

§ It is no longer necessary to restrict the term 'interest-system' to denote 
only those groups of interconnected neurograms that include some cognitive 
elements. See first two lines of § 5 of Chapter 5 on p. 62, above. 



i64 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 9. l 

We may illustrate the conflicting interest-systems by two opposing 
armies, which resemble the interest-systems in having an endarchical 
organisation. To the zone of contact between the interest-systems 
correspond the soldiers in a battle zone of front-line trenches, a 
comparatively small part of the two hostile forces. Whether these 
front-line soldiers are fighting, or fraternising (as many did on 
Christmas day, 1914), the battalion, brigade, division, corps, army, 
and general headquarters of the opposing forces are further removed 
from one another, the higher their places in the rival endarchies. The 
opposing armies, like the interest-systems, meet at the periphery but 
have separate foci, separate centres. And it is because the central 
elements in each of the opposing armies are exercising, upon the 
peripheral elements in contact, influences which have nothing in 
common, that the front-line troops on opposing sides are prevented 
from making friends with each other. Similarly, in the case of the 
interest-systems, the peripheral elements in contact would quickly 
become closely interconnected, were it not for the divergent influences 
exerted upon them by the central elements of the interest-systems of 
which they respectively form part. 

§2. Resolution of Conflicts. 

When two conflicting interest-systems are evenly balanced, the 
conflict can only be resolved by the intervention of the Will. But 
when the opposing systems are unequal, the elements of conflict, as 
we have described them, may be present without occasioning the 
intervention of the Will. The Will does not ordinarily* intervene 
unless or until the conflict is incapable of involuntary solution. Not 
unless the conflicting interest-systems are evenly balanced is the 
intervention of the Will required to enable the stream of thought to 
proceed. 

When, for example, the expert climber finds it necessary to rely 
only upon his hand-holds while he swings his body round a buttress 
of rock that overhangs a precipice, he does not hesitate: he requires 
no effort of Will. He does not have to weigh his purpose of going on 
with the climb against the danger of a fall. The question of what 
may happen if he lets go does not present itself to his consciousness. 
For the excitement of the corresponding neurogram is so much less 
than that of the purpose-neurogram of his climb, that the former 

* In the extraordinary case, the Will's intervention (if, as we said on p. 141 
above, the Will only intervenes to resolve conflicts) takes place because of some 
conflict other than that between the two interest-systems in question. 



II. 9. 2 CONFLICT 165 

drains involuntarily into the latter (according to our third law), and 
merely adds to the excitement available for climbing. The novice, 
on the other hand, who first meets such a place on the mountains, 
may experience no merely nascent conflict but one that is full-grown. 
His sense of danger may balance, or even over-balance, his purpose 
to complete the ascent. It is only by an effort of Will that he increases 
the excitement of his purpose-neurogram, concentrates upon the 
climb before him, and so resolves the conflict between the opposing 
tendencies, to turn back and to go on. When, by an effort of Will, 
he has decided to go on, the continued activity of his fear-neurogram 
no longer tends to turn him back, but enables him to grip his hand- 
holds all the more tightly*. 

Or, to take another illustration, we may compare the Londoner 
who crosses the Strand oblivious to danger (but in a pleasant state 
of excitement that helps to make him love London) with his country 
cousin who cannot face the dangerous traffic without an effort of Will. 

Now, the climber who has known the mountains from his youth 
and has gradually become accustomed to more and more difficult 
pitches, like the Cockney who has been born and bred in London 
and has grown up with the increasing danger of street traffic, may 
never have been called upon to exercise such an effort of Will as is 
required of one who has to face a great precipice, or a crowded 
thoroughfare, for the first time. Yet the strong-willed tourist new to 
the mountains, or the countryman new to the metropolis, may, by 
an exercise of voluntary decision, become as callous to a particular 
kind of danger as the native has been made by a long series of merely 
nascent conflicts between purpose, on the one hand, and a sense of 
that kind of danger, on the other. It follows that a series of efforts 
of Will, and therefore a single effort of Will, may modify the inter- 
connexion of neurograms precisely as they are modified by the in- 
voluntary thought-processes that effect the involuntary resolution of 
a conflict. For, when the tourist from the plains, after a series of 
voluntary efforts, has come to behave in the same way as the native 
mountaineer towards the dangers of the mountains, this result can 
only have been achieved by the modification of the neurograms of 
the dweller in the plains into the likeness of those of the native 
mountaineer. In fact, modification of the interconnexion of neuro- 
grams always accompanies the resolution of a conflict, whether the 
conflict be full-grown and be resolved by an effort of Will, intensifying 
the excitement in one of the opposing interest-systems so that it 

* Cf. above the paragraph beginning 'Secondly...' on pp. 132, 133 above. 



i66 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 9. 2 

drains the excitement from the other; or whether the conflict be 
merely nascent, in which case the more powerful interest-system may 
drain the excitement from the other, without the intervention of the 
Will. Seeing then that the Will only intervenes to resolve conflicts 
and that the resolution of a conflict always involves neurographic 
changes, we conclude that willed concentration of attention always 
modifies the connexions between neurograms. This conclusion is im- 
plied by the words of Mr Burt, whose experimental tests 'strongly 
suggest that... one feature or function of attentive consciousness... [is] 
the power of readjustment to relatively novel situations by organizing 
new psycho-physical coordinations.'* And, in Dr McDougall's view, 
the greater the effort of Will, the greater the effect in altering old 
neural connexions and making new ones f . 

When two opposing interest-systems are in contact over a 
restricted zone which at the moment is excited, their conflicting 
influence upon the stream of thought may be resolved without the 
intervention of the Will, unless the two systems are very evenly 
balanced. When the balance is even, the total excitement of the 
brain appears to increase. This increase of excitement is suggested by 
introspection. We have already J seen reason to believe that the 
intervention of the Will results in an increase of excitement. The 
increase of excitement here in question may also be partly due to 
circular nervous processes within the rival interest-systems; for, as 
we have said, every large interest-system tends to contain affective- 
conative elements. Another source of increased excitement may be 
the activity of the instinct-neurogram which gives rise to the emotion 
of anger; for, according to Dr McDougall§, the obstruction of any 
instinctive process (or, what amounts to the same thing, of the 
discharge of excitement from an excited affective-conative neurogram) 
is the normal stimulus of the emotion of anger. At all events, if 
excitement always increases on the occurrence of a conflict, the result 
may be that the corresponding thought-activity is brought more fully 
into the focus of consciousness, and that therefore the Will is better 
able to intervene; for the Will cannot, according to our fourth law, 
intensify excitement except in arcs that are already active; or, in 
other words, the Will can only intervene among thought-activities 
that are already in the field of consciousness. We may add, that an 
increase of excitement on the occurrence of conflict might suffice to 

* Loc. cit. p. i68. See also the passage (loc. cit. p. 169) quoted above, p. 117. 

■f See the passage quoted above, in footnote f, p. 130. 

% See above, p. 130. 

§ Social Psychology, p. 59. 



II. 9. 2 CONFLICT 167 

bring a sequence of unconscious thought-activities into the field of 
consciousness and so enable the Will to intervene, even in thought 
which, up to the moment of intervention, had been unconscious. 

When, even with the aid of the additional excitement which the 
anger-process may place at its disposal, the Will is unequal to the 
task of resolving a conflict between well-balanced interest-systems, 
there is one other primary emotion — 'distress' — that may come in 
to help. This state of feeling is frequently observed in children. 
Dr McDougall writes: 

Children very early display this reaction, which consists essentially in 
loud cries, sobbing, and tears.... The state of feeling or emotion that accom- 
panies this reaction is, I submit, properly called distress; and the feeling, 
together with the complex unlearned reaction, common to all members of 
the species, must be ascribed to an innate affective disposition which, like 
that of anger, does not seem to be innately connected with any innate 
cognitive disposition; for, like the disposition of anger, it seems to be 
excited only secondarily to other impulses. The typical result of the thwarting 
in the child of any strong impulse is first anger and then, if the impulse 
thus re-enforced still fails to attain its end, distress. That is to say, we are 
endowed with this innate tendency to relax our efforts and to cry aloud 
for help whenever we 'come to the end of our tether,' when we feel that 
our powers are quite incapable of coping with the situation. The biological 
value and function of this reaction are obvious; it seems to be primarily 
a function of infancy and childhood, when the help of older persons is so 
often required: but it seems to persist in the female sex into adult life; 
and even strong men, when their utmost efforts prove unavailing, some- 
times break down and cry aloud for help on whatever higher powers they 
may have learnt to conceive, thus showing that in them also this disposition 
is not wholly transitory. 

The two emotions of anger and distress occupy, then, a position unlike 
any others. They spring from innate affective dispositions and therefore 
have their specific bodily tendencies and expressions; but they differ from 
the others in depending for their arousal, not upon any particular objects 
or sense-impressions, but upon the thwarting of other impulses. 

This affect, properly called 'distress' (which I failed to recognise in 
Social Psychology), must be ranked with the primary emotions*. 

The function of distress, then, seems to be to sweep away the anger 
and the striving — a Kadapat^ tmv iraOTjfidTayv — , to absorb the remain- 
ing activity of the excited interest-systems, and, even if the help asked 
for from outside sources does not come in the way the subject expects, 
to leave him free to try afresh to resolve his conflict, unhampered by 
the memory of his former failure, or, in other words, by the interest- 
systems that were rendered active in his previous futile efforts. 

* 'Symposium,' loc. cit. p. 28. 



i68 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 9. 2 

We have now to examine more closely the nature of the alteration 
of neural connexions which, as we have seen, always accompanies the 
solution of a conflict, whether voluntary or involuntary. A conflict, 
we have said, results when excitement traverses a system of arcs 
that forms the sole connexion between two otherwise separate and 
distinct interest-systems, to the foci or centres of which the excite- 
ment then tends to flow in opposite directions. The resolution of the 
conflict may be accomplished by disconnecting, from one system or 
from the other, the excited arcs that are, to start with, on the fringe of 
both. We shall refer to this process as Disintegration, for it completes 
the dissociation of one interest-system from the other. Or the conflict 
may be resolved by introducing connexions between the central 
neurograms of the opposing systems. Returning to our military 
illustration, this second method would correspond to a victory that 
placed the general headquarters of the opposing armies in com- 
munication with one another and swallowed up the purposes of one 
commander-in-chief in those of the other. To this process we shall 
refer as Integration, for it makes the two interest-systems into 
one. Or, finally, the conflict may be resolved by a combination of 
Disintegration with Integration, as when the connected fringes of the 
two systems are more closely connected to each other and are, at 
the same time, disconnected from the opposing centres of the rival 
systems. The corresponding process in our military example would 
occur if the soldiers in the trenches, and their immediate commanding 
officers on both sides, were to fraternise, and agree to form an inter- 
national democratic state from which the influence of discordant 
autocracies — the higher military and political commanders on both 
sides — should be removed. 

We have, then, a cross-classification of the ways in which a conflict 
may be resolved. We first saw that conflicts may be resolved either 
(i) involuntarily, or (ii) voluntarily. And now we have said that 
conflicts may be resolved by (a) Disintegration (Repression) ; by 
{b) Disintegration combined with Integration (Displacement, or, in 
certain cases. Sublimation) ; or by (c) Integration (generally involving 
Conscious Control). Our justification for identifjdng the processes 
represented by Freudian terms included in the brackets with the 
neural mechanisms of Disintegration, Disintegration combined with 
Integration, and Integration respectively, will appear as we proceed. 
We may then tabulate the methods of resolving a conflict as 
follows : 



II. 9. 2 CONFLICT 169 

Table VI. 

a (i) Involuntary Disintegration (Re- a (ii) Voluntary Disintegration (Re- 

pression), pression). 

b (i) Involuntary Disintegration com- b (ii) Voluntary Disintegration com- 

bined with Involuntary In- binedwithVoluntarylntegra- 

tegration (Displacement or tion (Displacement or Sub- 

Sublimation), limation). 

c (i) Involuntary Integration. c (ii) Voluntary' Integration (generally 

Conscious Control). 

We proceed to illustrate these six processes. 

Disintegration (Repression) probably occurs far more often as an 
involuntary than as a voluntary process. The Freudian literature 
abounds in examples of Involuntary Repression {a (i)). We may 
follow Dr Bernard Hart * in citing a case of Involuntary Disintegration 
described by Professor Janet under the name of Irene: 

Ir^ne had nursed her mother through a prolonged illness culminating 
in death. The circumstances connected with the death were peculiarly 
painful, and the event produced a profound shock upon Irene's mind. 
She had been deeply attached to her mother, and the latter had filled the 
chief place in all her thoughts, ambitions and activities. Her mother's 
death, therefore, not only produced a great grief, but it deprived all those 
ambitions and activities of their main object and end. The ideas connected 
with the mother's illness and death formed a system or complex intensely 
painful and repugnant to the personality as a whole. A conflict was thus 
produced between the complex in question and the personality apart from 
this complex or interest-system. 'To get rid of this conflict, the mechanism 
of repression was brought into play. The painful complex was dislocated 
from the remainder of the mind, and no longer allowed to introduce its 
constituent ideas and emotions into the field of consciousness.' f Thus an 
abnormal mental condition developed, characterized by the frequent 
appearance of symptoms resembling those exhibited by the ordinary sleep- 
walker. Irene, perhaps engaged at the moment in sewing or in conversation, 
would suddenly cease her occupation and would commence to live over 
again the scene of her mother's death, carrying out every detail with all 
the power of an accomplished actress. "While this drama was in progress, 
she was perfectly unconscious of the actual events happening in her environ- 
ment, heard nothing that was said to her, and saw nothing but the imaginary 
scene in which she was living at the moment. This somnambulism would 
end as suddenly as it had begun, and Irene would return to her former 
occupation, absolutely unaware of the fact that it had ever been interrupted. 
After an interval of perhaps several days, a second somnambulism, re- 
sembling the first in all respects, would appear in the same abrupt manner. 
If the patient were interrogated during the apparently normal intervals, it 
would be found that she had not only entirely forgotten everything which 
had happened during the somnambuhsm, but that the whole system of 

* Lo:. cH. pp. 28, 46, 93. t Loc. oil. p. 93. 



170 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 9. 2 

ideas connected with her mother's death had completely disappeared from 
her mind. She remembered nothing of the illness or its tragic end; discussed 
her mother without emotion, and was reproached by her relatives for her 
callous indifference to the whole subject. 

In the case of Irene, the structure of the dissociated system of ideas, 
whose irruption into the field of consciousness was responsible for 
the appearance of the somnambulisms, comprised but little beyond 
the ideas connected with her mother's illness and death. But dis- 
sociated interest-systems may attain to any degree of complexity and 
development*. In cases of so-called double personahty, the dissociated 
system may be comparable in complexity with the remainder of the 
subject's neurography. In such a case it may be no longer possible 
to speak of one system as the dissociated system, for the whole 
neurography is disintegrated into two systems of approximately equal 
complexity. 

An example of Voluntary Repression {a (ii)) is furnished by the 
persons who, according to William James, 'can voluntarily empty 
their minds and " think of nothing " f .' When I decide not to entertain 
certain thoughts, and voluntarily connect them to the (©-process in 
the manner described above J, I dissociate the neurograms of those 
thoughts, and, as time goes on, other neurograms forming part of 
their system, from the remainder of my neurography§. I may thus 
resist a temptation by connecting the neurogram P of a lower 'pro- 
pensity,' to use William James' language ||, with the 0-system. A few 
such voluntary connexions made between P and 0, as P is from time 
to time excited from different sources, and as ^ therefore presents 
itself in various connexions, may effectively dissociate P from my 
organised interest-systems, and so set me free, at all events during 
my waking moments, from this particular temptation. 

Involuntary Disintegration combined with Integration {b (i)) — 
Involuntary Displacement — may be illustrated by another case cited 
by Dr Hart ^. A patient in whose life a lady of the name of Green 
played a very prominent part, was asked, 'Do you know a Miss 
Green? ' He replied, 'Green, that's green, that's blue, would you say 
that water is blue? ' Here the neurogram excited by the word ' Green ' 
was involuntarily disconnected from the interest-system corresponding 
to the lady, and connected instead — or, rather, more deeply connected 

* See above, p. 147. f Loc. crt. Vol. i, p. 404, % On pp. 147 to 149. 

§ Cf. J. C. Fluegel, B. J. P. Vol. viii, p. 493 (1917). We have already (see 
above, p. 148) quoted Mr Fluegel's view that 'repression is apt to extend from 
the element of thought which was originally the subject to other elements that 
are associated with it.' 

II Loc. cit. Vol. II, p. 548. ^ Loc. cit. p. no. 



II. 9. 2 CONFLICT 171 

— to the colour interest-system, and especially to that part of it 
corresponding to the colour blue-green. Had the neurogram of green 
(including both the lady and the colour) been entirely repressed, the 
patient would not have noticed the word ' Green ' in the question. But 
cases of Involuntary Disintegration combined with Integration are 
not all pathological. The politician described by Dr Hart* whose 
political interest-system 'will reinforce in his mind those arguments 
which support the view of his party, while it will infallibly prevent 
him from realising the force of the argument propounded by the 
opposite side,' is a case in point. Dr Hart adds: 'Now, it should be 
observed that the individual himself is probably quite unaware of 
this mechanism in his mind.' The political interest-system, on the 
one hand, exercises a disintegrative action upon the argument that 
is tending to connect a series of neurograms which it successively 
excites and to integrate them in a system that would be in conflict 
with the political interest-system in question; but, on the other hand, 
it exercises an integrative action by connecting to itself selected 
elements from the system of neurograms which the argument is 
successively exciting. 

In these examples of Involuntary Displacement {b (i)) — that is, of 
Involuntary Disintegration combined with Integration — the disin- 
tegrative (repressive) part of the process has been far more marked 
than the integrative part. Indeed, Dr Hart, from whose work they 
have been quoted, employed them to illustrate Repression alone. But 
in other cases the integrative action may be far more marked than 
the disintegrative. Of such a kind are many pathological cases of 
phobias, obsessions and the like, where the extent of the interest- 
system that has gradually been built up around the phobia-neurogram 
implies far more integrative action than the disintegration involved 
in dissociating the phobia-neurogram from the system of which it 
originally formed part. For example : Late one evening a soldier in an 
Indian frontier station, from which several sentries have mysteriously 
disappeared at night, hears a slight disturbance outside the compound, 
and goes out to investigate among the trees near by. He rescues the 
sentry, who is at grips with two dark figures, when, from a branch 
overhead, a third black shape falls upon him with outstretched blade. 
He is only just in time to avoid the blow. Years afterwards, returning 
from France with shell-shock, he has no recollection whatever of the 
Indian incident, but his whole life is coloured and distorted by an 
unreasoning fear of trees, especially after dark. The fear of trees has 

* Loc. cit. p. 65. 



172 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 9. 2 

been disintegrated from its connexions with a certain night in India, 
but has been integrated with other neurograms to form a far vaster 
interest-system, so wide as to be excitable through a multitude of 
everyday happenings. 

Such involuntary displacements are usually of slow growth. But 
they are not by any means always injurious. On the contrary, they 
may be most beneficial. They are then commonly referred to as 
'sublimations' instead of as 'displacements.' A sublimation is, in 
fact, a displacement in which the prime-moving affective-conative 
elements are dissociated from an interest-system that is opposed to — 
i.e. potentially in conflict with — the good elements in a future-interest- 
system, and then integrated with those good elements. Later on we 
shall specify more particularly what these good elements are and 
wherein they differ from elements that are bad in a moral sense. 
Here it is sufficient to remark that a general consensus of opinion 
recognises certain purposes as good, and that the elements which we 
have called good in a future-interest-system are those the excitement 
of which brings a good purpose before consciousness and tends to its 
realisation. Mr Fluegel gives as an example of (Involuntary) Sublima- 
tion such transformations of neural connexions 'as are effected in a 
man who, originally endowed with impulses prompting to cruelty 
and sadism, becomes an efficient surgeon, soldier or butcher.'*... He 
adds that ' the more advanced forms of Sublimation are in most cases 
processes of gradual growth through successive steps, each more 
remote in nature from the original expression of the tendency, and 
each representing an advance from the moral point of view. Thus we 
must not grow impatient if in the first stages there is to our eyes still 
too much resemblance to the original activity, e.g. if. ..the subsequent 
surgeon early displayed an undue tendency to pull to pieces flowers, 
toys or other objects or to behave in an aggressive and cruel manner 
in his relations with other children. The gulf between the original 
tendencies and their ultimate expression is obviously far too wide to 
be bridged by a single step, especially when we are dealing with minds 
that are still immature. For this reason it would seem very undesirable 
in educative practice to extend our taboos and prohibitions beyond 
the sphere in which they are strictly necessary, lest in so doing we 
interfere with the initial stages of Sublimation. A school or home (or 
even a country) in which everything is forbidden will probably afford 
a relatively unfavourable atmosphere for the growth of Sublimation.' f 

* Loc. cit. p. 485, where other examples are also given, 
t Loc. cit. pp. 486, 487. 



II. 9. 2 CONFLICT 173 

Unless, for example, young men have opportunities of sublimating 
a tendency to organised fighting into an interest in (playing in) 
football matches or (rowing in) boat races, their original tendency 
will probably lead them to a morbid interest in military matters 
fostered by duelling and ultimately finding its full vent in war. 

We have now to illustrate Voluntary Displacement {b (ii)) — 
Voluntary Disintegration combined with Integration. The airman 
who dodges shells from anti-aircraft guns, may disconnect the problem 
of anticipating the next burst and keeping out of its way from the 
fear of the consequences of being hit, and connect it instead with 
an interest in dodging the opposing back when scoring a try at 
Rugby football. In short, by an effort of Will he may pretend that 
dodging 'Archies' is a game. The climber, who succeeds in voluntarily 
disconnecting most of the effects of fear from his climbing experiences, 
but retains some of the excitement to add to the energy available for 
climbing, affords another example of the same kind. But perhaps the 
best example of Voluntary Displacement is furnished by the process 
technically called Rationalisation. This process consists essentially in 
repressing some neural connexion at which conflict is apt to originate 
between opposing interest-systems, and connecting the systems instead 
by some roundabout path, the excitement of which will not lead to 
conflict. For example, to borrow another illustration from Dr Hart, 
' The man whose commercial morality differs fundamentally from the 
code which he practices in his private hfe, persuades himself that the 
latter code is not properly apphcable to business relations, that to 
ask a customer three times the value of a certain article is obviously 
something quite different from thieving, that a man must live, and 
that the immorahty of lying completely disappears when it is necessary 
for the support of one's wife and family. Whenever, in fact, our 
actions conflict with our ethical principles we seek for specious reasons 
which will enable us to regard the actions in question as a peculiar 
case altogether justified by the circumstances in which they are 
carried out. ...The honest man who swindles the railway company 
and the government without in any way injuring his sense of personal 
rectitude, provides an excellent illustration of the process we are now 
describing.' * 

Another illustration is afforded by the puritan councillor whose 
aesthetic sense was offended by galvanised iron receptacles for sand 
and gravel placed by the roadside of his city. He would not acknow- 
ledge that aesthetic ideas had any part to play in human life. When 

* Loc. cit. pp. S^, 86. 



174 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 9. 2 

therefore he protested to the city council against the use of the iron 
receptacles in question, and was challenged for his reason, the only 
reason he could give was that ' they might afford a murderer an easy 
means of disposing of the body of his victim.'* 

Of a similar kind are all the multitude of rationalisations by which 
men, ignorant of the true external or internal origin of their opinions, 
voluntarily inter-connect them so as to form a kind of caricature of 
a perfectly integrated mind. This caricature differs from the real thing 
in that the truly reasoned view will fit experience as it grows, while 
growing experience will continuall}^ be in conflict with vain rationahsa- 
tions such as, according to Mr Trotter, largely constitute the mental 
furniture of the average man. ' He will have fairly settled views upon 
the origin and nature of the universe, and upon what he will probably 
call its meaning; he will have conclusions as to what is to happen to 
him at death and after, as to what is and what should be the basis 
of conduct. He will know how the country should be governed, and 
why it is going to the dogs; why this piece of legislation is good, and 
that bad. He will have strong views upon military and naval strategy, 
the principles of taxation, the use of alcohol and vaccination, the 
treatment of influenza, the prevention of hydrophobia, upon municipal 
trading, the teaching of Greek, upon what is permissible in art, 
satisfactory in literature, and hopeful in science.' f In so far as these 
views are in conflict with each other (internal conflict) or with his 
experience (external conflict) as it develops, he represses — disinte- 
grates — the disharmony; and it is this admixture of Disintegration 
with Voluntary Integration which justifies the inclusion of these 
examples of everyday rationalisation under the head of Voluntary 
Displacement, or Voluntary Disintegration combined with Integration. 

In all these cases of rationalisation, opposing interest-systems are 
dissociated from one another at the point of conflict, but allowed to 
come into contact by means of a long-circuit of neural paths, no 
portion of which is so closely connected to both systems as to give 
rise to conflict when it is excited; or, in Dr Hart's phrase, the contact 
between the incompatible systems of ideas is only made 'by means 
of a bridge of rationalisations which so distorts their mutual signifi- 
cance that conflict is efficiently avoided.'! 

We have now to illustrate the process of Integration pure and 

* 'The well-known story of the old judge advising the new one never to give 
reasons for his decisions, "the decisions will probably be right, the reasons will 
surely be wrong,'" is here in point. Cf. W. James, loc. cit. Vol. ii, p. 365. 

f W. Trotter, 'Herd Instinct,' Sociological Review, 1908, quoted by Dr Hart, 
loc. cit. p. 135. { Loc. cit. p. 86. 



II. 9. 2 CONFLICT 175 

simple. We remark once more that this process is seldom involuntary, 
and may generally be identified with Conscious Control. We may 
illustrate the comparatively rare instances of Involuntary Integration 
(c (i)) by the case in which a sudden stimulus causes to be performed 
involuntarily a complex movement which the Will had previously 
been incapable of carrying out. Suppose, for example, that the novice 
on skis who has been trying, time after time, but without success, to 
perform a Christiania swing — a sudden turn by which the ski runner, 
speeding down a mountain side, may stop himself almost instanta- 
neously — , gives it up and goes out for an expedition on the mountains. 
He is running swiftly down what he supposes to be a continuous 
smooth slope, when, suddenly, he is aware of a dangerous crack into 
which he must fall unless, despite his speed, he can turn to avoid it. 
Immediately, and without difficulty, he is saved from the danger by 
a perfect swing*. And the excitement accompanying the involuntary 
integration that we have described may have been so great that our 
novice may, for the future, be able to perform the Christiania swing at 
will. Other similar examples of Involuntary Integration are afforded 
by one who, having practised the swimming movements on dry land, 
but never having been able to perform them in the sea for fear of 
swallowing salt water, is suddenly thrown into deep water to sink or 
swim; or, again, by the involuntary formation of novel neural con- 
nexions in the animal learning a new trick under the influence of fear 
of pain, in case he does not perform to the satisfaction of his master. 
We have said that when a conflict is solved by Integration it is not 
in general solved by Involuntary but by Voluntary Integration (c (ii)). 
And this is the ideal solution of all conflicts f. For when a conflict is 

* What has doubtless happened is that the sudden fearful vision has excited 
his fear-system as well as his swing-neurogram ; so that, before the turn had well 
begun and before the semi-circular canals connected with the opposing balance- 
neurogram had become excited, the inrush of excitement from the fear-system 
into the swing-neurogram so lowered the resistances of all its synapses that it 
drained all other excitement arising during the turn. The image of the turn held 
the focus of consciousness against all comers. 

f Cf. Fluegel, loc. cit. p. 489: 'The satisfactory solution of Conflict as revealed 
by Psycho-analysis would appear to consist in bringing both the opposing tend- 
encies into the focus of consciousness, recognizing them for what they are, both 
in themselves and in their consequences, without any attempt at covering up or 
slurring over any of their aspects, either from intellectual laziness or from any 
painful feeling which they may arouse. The whole experience and the whole of 
the mental abUity of the personality is then available for deciding between the 
conflicting claims — a state of affairs which is impossible as long as there exists 
any considerable degree of Repression.' 

Cf. also Bernard Hart, loc. cit. p. 79: 'This subjective appreciation of the forces 
at war within us, and deliberate adoption of a consciously selected line of 
conduct, may be regarded as the rational or ideal solution of a conflict. In fact 
it may be said to provide the only possible solution in the strict sense of the word.' 



176 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 9. 2 

resolved by so inter-connecting the two opposing interest-systems that 
the neural conditions of conflict are removed once and for all, the 
conflict has been for ever ended by a ' fight to a finish.' * No repressed 
system is preserved to carry on a war after the war. Where, however. 
Disintegration (Repression) is employed to resolve a conflict, the 
repressed system is preserved, although its dissociation from the 
remainder of the subject's neurography prevents it from influencing 
consciousness directly. That such repressed systems are preserved, 
and that they may influence consciousness indirectly, as in dreams, 
psycho-analysis affords ample evidence. Moreover, as we sawf, such 
a repressed system tends to grow ; and, as it grows, it makes for the 
disintegration of personality and militates against a consistent and 
effective life. 

Voluntary Integration consists of neurographic changes brought 
about by the action of Will. We have already J seen that an effort 
of Will always produces such changes. According to our fourth law, 
the only way in which the Will produces this or any other effect is 
by intensifying the excitement in a system of active arcs so that the 
remainder of the excitement of the brain shall drain through that 
system, deepening the path or paths by which the draining takes 
place. 

§ 3. Two Types of Conflict. 

We have now to consider more closely the neurographic changes 
involved in the solution of conflict by Voluntary Integration. It will 
be convenient to begin by distinguishing two types of conflict, 
although we shall see later that the neurographic changes which 
remove the opposition are essentially the same in both cases. Conflict, 
as we have defined it, occurs whenever an involuntary stream of 
thought is blocked; or, what amounts to the same thing, whenever 
the corresponding flow of excitement through brain arcs is obstructed. 
The obstruction is always due to competition between two neurograms 
or systems of neurograms, to which, on account of their competition, 
we shall refer as the competing or opposing neurograms or systems. 

The first of our two types of conflict may be distinguished as 
unipolar. The conflict is between one neurogram (generally a purpose- 
neurogram) excited by the Will, and some other neurogram or system 
excited involuntarily through old neural connexions (for example, the 
neurogram of a habit, instinct, or reflex movement such as may result 
from a painful stimulus). Conflicts of the unipolar type commonly 

* Bernard Hart, loc. cit. p. 79. f See above, pp. 147 and 170. 

X See above, p. 165. 



II. 9. 3 CONFLICT 177 

arise when some external* obstacle prevents the fulfilment of a 
purpose. 

The second type of conflict is bipolar; it takes place between two 
interest-systems, originally on equal terms as regards excitement by 
the Will. Both may be voluntarily excited, as in the case of two 
purpose-neurograms in conflict; or else neither may be voluntarily 
excited. Conflicts of internal origin are generally bipolar. 

In the first (or unipolar) case, the Will strives to make the excite- 
ment go through one neurogram, and one only. In the second (or 
bipolar) case, the Will strives to make the excitement go through two 
neurograms by connecting them together. In the first case, the Will 
may be regarded as a partizan; in the second, as a detached and 
disinterested judge. These two types of conflict correspond to the 
two sources of science, the practical source and the theoretical source, 
described by Professor Whitehead f. 'The practical source is the 
desire to direct our actions to achieve pre-determined ends. For 
example, the British nation, fighting for justice, turns to science, 
which teaches it the importance of compounds of nitrogen. The 
theoretical source is the desire to understand.' % 

Let us now consider in greater detail the solution of unipolar 
conflicts by Voluntary Integration. We may represent the neural 
conditions of this type of conflict by Fig. 10 on p. 178. In this diagram, 
A represents the system of arcs maximally excited at any moment, 
when ^ occupies the focus of consciousness, while Z represents the 
purpose-neurogram through which the Will strives to make the 
excitement from A drain. To this end, the WiU increases the excite- 
ment in Z; and, for this to be possible, Z must be active, or, in other 
words, % must be present on the fringe of consciousness. As the 
excitement in Z rises under the influence of the Will, the excitement 
from A tends to drain into Z by the shortest available path. Suppose 
that this path proceeds from the element a oi A to the element z of 

* See above, p. 162. 

f Presidential Address to Section A, British Association, Newcastle, 1916; 
reprinted in The Organization of Thought, p. io6. 

J Loc. cit. p. 106. Professor Whitehead adds: 'To avoid misconception, I most 
emphatically state that I do not consider one source as in any sense nobler than 
the other, or intrinsically more interesting. I cannot see why it is nobler to strive 
to understand than to busy oneself with the right ordering of one's actions. Both 
have their bad side; there are evil ends directing actions, and there are ignoble 
curiosities of the understanding.' In another place (loc. cit. p. in). Professor 
Whitehead holds that 'the first great steps in the organization of thought were 
due exclusively to the practical source of scientific activity, without any admixture 
of the theoretical impulse.' We shall have reason to doubt the correctness of this 
last opinion, for we shall see that theory is as old as the instinct of curiosity, and 
that therefore it long preceded man. 



178 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 9. 3 

Z. Since we are considering a case of conflict, we have to suppose 
that, as the excitement begins to flow from a to z, it meets an old 
path of much lower resistance, leading not to z but to the neurogram, 
U , of some habitual, instinctive or reflex movement which then takes 
place and so drains the excitement. The result is to defeat the Will's 
effort to cause the excitement to drain through Z. 

Suppose, for example, that I wish to unscrew a metal lid from 
a glass jar. I am faced by the jar with the lid stuck fast, and this 
image is in the focus of my consciousness. Its neurogram is repre- 
sented by A in the diagram. My purpose is to grip the jar tightly 
with one hand and the lid with the other, and then to twist one hand 
relatively to the other without my fingers shpping. To this com- 
plicated movement corresponds the excitement of Z in the diagram ; 



and when the movement takes place — when Z drains the excitement 
— the lid is unscrewed. But if the lid is stuck very fast indeed, a 
great effort of my Will is required from me in order that I may grip 
the jar and lid so tightly that, when I twist my hands relatively to 
one another, my fingers shall not slip. Ultimately, a point is reached 
when the pressure on my fingers causes me so unpleasant a feeling 
that my Will is unequal to the task of gripping more tightly. The 
unpleasant feehng corresponds to the excitement of V in the diagram. 

Now, it may happen that the lid is not so tightly stuck but that, 
with a very great effort, I may be able to make the necessary move- 
ment in spite of the unpleasant feeling. In that case I excite Z and 
the path Aa...zZ sufficiently to lower the resistance of the path 
below that of the path Aa ... U. 

Or again U may correspond to some lower propensity of instinct 
or of habit, while Z corresponds to an ideal impulse. Thus William 
James writes : 

The ideal impulse [when compared with the propensity] appears a still 
small voice which must be artificially reinforced to prevail. Effort is what 



II. 9. 3 CONFLICT 179 

reinforces it, making things seem as if, while the force of propensity were 
essentially a fixed quantity, the ideal force might be of various amount. 
But what determines the amount of the effort when, by its aid, an ideal 
motive becomes victorious over a great sensual resistance? The very 
greatness of the resistance itself. If the sensual propensity is small, the 
effort is small. The latter is made great by the presence of a great antagonist 
to overcome. And if a brief definition of ideal or moral action were required, 
none could be given which would better fit the appearances than this: it 
is action in the line of the greatest resistance. The facts may be most briefly 
symbolized thus: U standing for the propensity, Z for the ideal impulse, 
and W for the effort: ^ ^^^ ^^ < ^^ 

Z + W > U. 
In other words, if W adds itself to Z, U immediately offers the least resist- 
ance, and motion occurs in spite of it. But the W does not seem to form an 
integral part of the Z. It appears adventitious and indeterminate in advance. 
We can make more or less as we please, and if we make enough, we can 
convert the greatest mental resistance into the least. Such, at least, is the 
impression which the facts spontaneously produce upon us*. 

In this way, as well as by the method of Repression already described, 
temptations may be overcome. 

But it will often happen that a direct effort of Will is insufficient 
to cause Z to drain the excitement from A . When the Will is incapable 
of directly exciting Z (and the direct path, Aa ... zZ, from A to Z) 
sufficiently to make the excitement drain by that route instead of 
by the path a ... U, the excitement may still be drained from A to Z 
if the Will can make an indirect path, Aa' ... z'Z, from A to Z, avoiding 
V and its connexions. Reasoning is the process by which the Will| 
may make a new% indirect path of this kind. In this process the Will 
first concentrates excitement in Z, although Z fails to drain the 
excitement. If then Z drain the excitement directly from A, the 
conflict is resolved without reasoning; but, if not, Z remains active 
and ready to assist in guiding the excitement towards itself. This 
guiding continues throughout the process; it works by multiple 
stimulation, in the manner already § described; and it consists, as we 
have seen, in the excitement always tending, when other things are 
equal, to flow through the paths that are most closely connected with 
the active interest-system, Z. 

* William James, loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 549. The letters are changed to fit our 
diagram. 

I We have already (on p. 165) remarked that the operation of the Will always 
modifies neurographic connexions. 

X W. James {loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 330) makes 'ability to deal with novel data the 
technical differentia of reasoning' and so marks it off from common associative 
(involuntary) thinking. 

§ See above, p. 83; and below, pp. 257 et seq. 



i8o THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 9. 3 

The voluntary concentration of excitement in Z having failed, 
we suppose, to cause direct drainage through a ...z, the Will next con- 
centrates excitement in A : attention is concentrated upon ^. The ex- 
citement now spreads to numerous associated neurograms* a' ,a" , ... , 
in addition to a. Concentration of excitement in a would lead, not 
to z and so to Z, but to U instead. So now excitement is concentrated 
in one of the other neurograms connected with A, say a'. From a' the 
excitement diffuses to many others {b', ...), some of which are already 
connected to «', and, if the excitement in a' is now greater than it 
has previously been, to some new ones now connected with a' for 
the first time. After diffusion, concentration!: excitement is now 
concentrated upon some one, say|, b', of the neurograms to which 
excitement has diffused from a'. From b' the excitement again diffuses 
to a number of neurograms, in one of which it is concentrated. And 
so the process proceeds, concentration alternating with diffusion. 
Finally, if the process is successful, Z is reached through one of its 
connexions z\ The excitement then drains from A to Z through the 
path Aa'... z'Z. 

The example already § considered will illustrate the process. As 
excitement is concentrated in Z, my fingers grip and my hands begin 
to turn in opposite directions. My fingers do not, however, move, and, 
lest they should slip, my grip increases. As the strain increases, an 
unpleasant feeling, due to the excitement of IJ , rapidly grows. More- 
over, from JJ the excitement passes on to other arcs the excitement 
of which leads to the relaxation of the strain ||: the excitement is 
being drained through V to these arcs instead of through z to Z. 
We are supposing that direct stimulation of my purpose-neurogram 
Z is insufficient to achieve my purpose. My failure is not due to the 
tearing of my muscles, which could only result from a state of maniacal 
excitement incapable of production by voluntary effort. It is due, 
as we have said, to the excitement draining from a \.q U instead of 
from a to z. 

* Three of these are shewn in the diagram in addition to a and a' which are 
lettered. 

t See above, Fig. 5, p. 80. 

X In the language we shall use later (e.g. on pp. 187, 190), h' corresponds to 
an essence 'abstracted' from indefinite impressions of the world of experience. 
Why this particular essence is abstracted will appear when we consider (on pp. 231 
et seq.) how new paths made by reasoning must form a certain kind of system 
(a 'maximal endarchy') corresponding to the systematically arranged, or 'har- 
monious' world of experience (the 'endarchy of science'). 

§ See above, p. 178. 

li We may imagine neural connexions resembling those shewn in the diagrams 
(Figs. 3 and 4) on pp. 75, 76 above. 



II. 9. 3 CONFLICT i8i 

My purpose-neurogram remaining active, I now concentrate my 
attention on the jar with the stuck lid: excitement is being con- 
centrated in A . Among the ideas that enter my field of consciousness 
are those which correspond to the excitement of the neurograms 
a, a', a", .... Then a represents the idea of ' taking hold and starting 
to unscrew,' which leads directly to Z-, but which leads also to M 
(unpleasant feelings and the rest) under circumstances which result 
in 2E, and not 'Z, coming into the focus of consciousness. We may 
suppose that a' represents the thought that the hd is too small for 
the jar; a", the thought that the lid is stuck to the jar by some such 
substance as candle wax; and so on. 

Having failed to excite my purpose-neurogram sufficiently to 
cause the lid to move, and having concentrated my attention on the 
jar with its stuck lid (il), I realise, not merely that the top is stuck, 
but that it is stuck at a particular place, or stuck because it is too 
small (a'), or stuck because some adhesive substance joins it to the 
jar (a")- I ^ow concentrate on one of these ideas: for example on 
a', that the lid is too small. As the excitement diffuses from the 
corresponding neurogram a' a number of associations of this idea 
(a') of smallness come before my mind, with vividness depending 
upon the excitement of the corresponding neurograms, and so in part 
upon the extent to which these neurograms are stimulated from my 
purpose-neurogram which continues active all the while. One {h') of 
these associations of smallness may well be, that the lid has contracted 
in cooling more than the glass jar: the lid may be too cold, and may 
expand again on heating. Once more, I concentrate my attention on 
this idea, and, among the associations to which it gives rise, is the idea 
that heating may be produced by the friction of my fingers. On this 
idea I then concentrate, and automatically my fingers rub the lid 
until it turns freely in my hand. The conflict has been resolved by 
successive stages of voluntary integration. 

We shall shortly* return to this example of the solution of a 
unipolar conflict by reasoning — a special (and specially important) 
case, as we have seen, of voluntary integration — in order to illustrate 
certain characteristics of reasoning in general. Among these charac- 
teristics we shall have to consider particularly the alternate concentra- 
tion and diffusion of neural excitement; the relation of the linked 
neurograms, successively excited as the chain of reasoning proceeds, 
to the outside world of things about which one is reasoning; and the 
influence of the purpose or aim, which overshadows the reasoning 

* On p. 1 86 below. 



i82 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 9. 3 

process from the start. Meanwhile, however, we have to illustrate 
the solution of bipolar conflicts, by voluntary integration and especially 
by reasoning; and then to compare the three* voluntary means of 
resolving a conflict, by disintegration, by disintegration combined 
with integration and by integration respectively. 

In bipolar conflicts there are two interest-systems attracting the 
impulse in opposite directions. We proceed to consider how the 
conflict is to be solved by voluntary integration. 

The diagram (Fig. ii) represents a case of bipolar conflict; 
Zj and Z2 are the interest-systems in conflict; Aj^ and A^ are direct 
paths leading respectively to Zj and Zg. The complete solution of 
this conflict consists in making A drain into both Zj and Zg. But 
the conflict may be resolved otherwise than by this complete solution. 
One way of doing so is, as we have already seen, by connecting 'Z-g to 
the ©-process and so repressing it. The conflict is then resolved by 
Disintegration. Another method, which does not give the complete 




Fig. II. 

solution of draining A into both Zj and Z^ but which may nevertheless 
give a solution sufficientl}^ complete for many practical purposes 
without involving direct Repression, consists in concentrating ex- 
citement in one of the opposing systems, say Z^ , so that the threshold 
AA^ is lowered; the excitement will then drain by the path AA^Z^ 
instead of by the path AA2Z2. Moreover, the neurography is altered, 
so that in future Z^ will always tend to drain excitement from A 
without opposition from Zg. The conflict has been thus far solved, 
and this partial solution suffices if all that is required is to choose 
either 2-i or Z-a. no matter which. If, for example, while I am walking 
in the country without any object but that of enjoying the open air 
and exercise, I meet a fork in the road, it matters to me not at all 
which turning I take. My proper course is not to stand hesitating 
between the two, but — perhaps after tossing a coin — to choose one 
or the other. My choice consists in concentrating my attention on 
the thought of the road I am to follow. Conflicts of this type may seem 
insignificant and unworthy of serious consideration ; but, as Mr Fluegel 

* See a (ii), b (ii), and c (ii) in Table VI on p. 169. 



11. 9. 3 CONFLICT 183 

has pointed out *, they are distressingly frequent to some minds. But 
where the conflict is more serious, where Z^ and Zg both represent 
large and deep interest-systems, the device of tossing a coin, followed 
by the concentration of excitement in Z^ (or in Z^ fails altogether 
to furnish a satisfactory solution. In such a case we have to rely on 
reasoning to furnish new paths which shall enable the excitement 
from A to drain into both Z^ and Zg . 

Suppose, for example, that an old and well-established manu- 
facturing business has of late been going down-hill, and recognises 
its need of a scientific director or manager, who shall introduce new 
appliances and processes, and bring back to the firm its old prosperity. 
Those now in control of the business are anxious to appoint the best 
possible man and, we may readily suppose, to pay him the least 
possible salary. Now, the man who will come for a relatively low 
salary is likely to possess relatively low qualifications. There is, there- 
fore, a conflict in the mind of the present managing director between 
the desire to appoint a highly qualified man and the desire to pay 
him a low salary. The neural conditions of the conflict are represented 
in the diagram (Fig. 11, p. 182) where Zj and Zg represent the opposing 
interest-systems, Z^ corresponding to the purpose of getting the best 
man, and Zg to the purpose of saving the most money. Then the 
excitement of the direct paths ^j (to Zj) and ^2 (toZa) may correspond 
respectively to the thoughts (^1) of paying a high salary to get the 
best man, and (^2) of paying a low salary to save the most money. 
The two opposing purpose-neurograms (or systems of neurograms), 
Zi and Z2, are therefore tending to drain the excitement (from A) 
in opposite directions. The complete solution of this conflict is 
effected by so modifying the neurographic connexions that the ex- 
citement from A may drain into both Z^ and Zg. If, for example, 
I am able to reason out a connexion %xi\ ••• 2,<^%2 between %^ and %^, 
I shall, as we have seen, be forming a neural path Z^z^ ... -?2^2 by 
which the excitement may drain on from Z^ to Zg. The completion 
of this path will at once tend to make the excitement from A proceed 
to ^1 and so through Zy to Zg, instead of through A.^ to Z^. This 
follows at once from an argument already f given, when we reflect that 
the new path Zy...z^ is of lower resistance than the reverse path 
2:2 ••• -2i + ; and that the existence of conflict entitles us to assume that, 

* hoc. cit. p. 495. t See above, pp. 86 to 88. 

X This is William James' (loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 581) law of forward conduction. 
(Cf. W. McDougall, Physiological Psychology, pp. 136, 137.) The resistance of 
z^... Zi is doubtless lowered to some slight extent by the greater lowering of the 
resistance of the path z-^ ... Z2. 



i84 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 9. 3. 

before the opening of the new path Z^^^ ... z.^Z^, the rival paths 
AAj^Z^ and AA2Z2 offered equal resistance to the excitement in ^. If 
therefore Z^ can be connected to Zg by reasoning, the excitement from 
A wiU drain through A^ to both Zj and Z^, the influences of Zj and 
Z2 on the direction of the excitement having been harmonised by the 
newly formed neural connexions between them. The confhct wiU thus 
have been solved. 

In our illustration, where Z^ is the neurogram of the purpose to 
appoint the best man and Zg is the neurogram of the purpose to save 
as much money as possible, the reasoning process that connects Z^ 
through Zi and Zg to Zg may take the form of reflecting that a first 
rate manager may so improve the manufactured article as to increase 
the demand for it, or its selhng price, or both, and thus to increase 
the firm's receipts by far more than the amount of his salary ; so that it 
will be cheaper (Zg) in the long run to pay a big salary (Aj) and so to 
get a good man (Z^) than to offer a small salary (^2) ^^'^ ^^i^s both 
the better man (Zj) and the big profit that means the greater 
saving (Zg). 

Let us consider another case of bipolar conflict that will illustrate 
the differences between the three types of voluntary (willed) solution 
named in Table VI on p. 169: namely, solution by disintegration 
(Repression), solution by disintegration combined with integration 
(Displacement), and solution by integration (Conscious Control or 
Reasoning). Suppose that, knowing the constitution of the blue 
cobalt glass that is often used in lamps that mark the entrances to 
police stations, and knowing also certain optical properties of the 
constituents in relation to various monochromatic lights, we calculate 
that the cobalt glass will absorb yellow and green light much more 
than red Ught, and red light more than blue or violet light. Our 
calculation then tells us that white hght (containing red, yellow, green, 
blue, and violet lights in the proportions in which they are contained 
in sunhght) when looked at through cobalt glass will appear blue- 
violet, the yellow, green, and red rays having been in large measure 
absorbed by the glass. Then suppose that, in order to test our calcu- 
lated colour by experiment, we look at a gas flame through the glass. 
It appears red, not blue. We have therefore a conflict between the 
blue of theory and the red of practice. In our diagram (Fig. 11 on p. 182) 
Zj may correspond to blue and Zg to red. We want to believe both 
the reasoned deduction {'Z;j) from well established facts; and we also 
want to believe the e\ddence (Z-g) of our senses. But the two are in 



II. 9. 3. CONFLICT 185 

opposition, and our desire to believe one conflicts with our desire to 
believe the other. 

We may resolve this bipolar conflict in any one of the three ways 
of which we have just reminded ourselves. In the first place we may 
ignore the result of the experiment in which the light appeared red: 
we try to forget, and in due course succeed in forgetting, that we 
ever tried the experiment. We then repress Z2, disintegrating Z^ 
from the remainder of the system. Our conflict has then disappeared, 
for we rest assured that theory is correct in telling us that white hght 
shining through cobalt glass appears blue. (The obvious dishonesty 
of this solution is probably* a particular case of a general ethical 
inferiority of this method — repression or disintegration — of resolving 
conflicts.) 

In the second place we may resolve the conflict by disintegration 
combined with integration: in short, by displacement. I may say 
to myself — almost in the words of Br Hart's patient: 'Green, that's 
green, that's blue...' f — ' Red, that's crimson, that's purphsh, perhaps 
quite purple, or say blue.' In this way I voluntarily concentrate upon 
and extend any 'blue' element there may be in my Z<^ neurogram, 
meanwhile ignoring the 'red' elements, until, by a combination of 
integration with disintegration, I have displaced Z^ so as to coincide 
with Zy. 

Finally we come to the third — the ideal| — method of solving a 
conflict: namely by integration. Integration in this case involves 
linking Z^ to Zg by means of a new path; and the process by which 
the new path is made is, as we said§, that of reasoning. This new path 
is made by observing that the red colour of cobalt glass seen by 
gas light is only a particular case of its BLUE — red — green — yellow 
colour seen by sunlight ; for gas hght lacks nearly all the blue of sun- 
light, and its yellow and its green are largely absorbed by the glass, 
so that the transmitted portion of gas light must be almost pure red, 
a deduction which accords exactly with the result of experiment. 

* Cf. Fluege], loc. cit. 

•f B. Hart, loc. cit. p. no, quoted above (p. 170) to illustrate the solution of 
a conflict by displacement. 

J See above, p. 175. § See above, p. 179. 



CHAPTER 10 

SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF REASONING 

We have now to examine more closely certain general characteristics 
of the reasoning process. We might employ any of our examples — 
that of unipolar, or either of those of bipolar, conflict — to illustrate 
these characteristics. We shall, however, find it most convenient to 
use the first example* — that of a unipolar conflict — because in that 
case we noted details upon which it was unnecessary to remark again 
in either of the examples that followed. 

We observe, to begin with, that (as we said when first f using the 
word) reasoning involves making new association paths. Novelty — 
'ability to deal with NOVEL data' — constituted, in WiUiam James' 
view, 'the technical differentia of reasoning.' % Moreover, we are about 
to emphasise the fact that voluntary (willed) concentration of 
attention is part and parcel of all but the simplest, if not indeed of 
all, reasoning; and we have already § quoted the conclusion, strongly 
suggested to Mr Burt by the results of his Oxford experiments on 
schoolboys, 'that. ..one feature or function of attentive consciousness 
...[is] the power of readjustment to relatively woz'^/ situations by organ- 
ising new psychophysical co-ordinations. '|| The new association paths 
made by reasoning are illustrated in our diagrams (Figs. lo and ii). 

Let us next recognise how important is the concentration of 
attention (or of neural excitement) during the reasoning process. When, 
in our example of the stuck metal lid, a' and a" both came into my 
mind together, my reasoning would have ended there had I failed 
to concentrate on a' and to leave a" out of account for the time being. 
I had, in fact, to concentrate on the idea that the lid was too small, 
without further considering, for the moment at least, the possibility 
that the lid might be stuck with candle wax. Thus, in reasoning 
the neural excitement is more strictly localised than in involuntary 
(common associative) thinking. ' The first thing,' says William James^, 

* See above, pp. 178 and 180,181. f See above, p. 179. 

X Loc. cit. Vol. II, p. 330, already quoted above, p. 179. 

§ See above, pp. 116, 117. 

II Loc. cit. p. 168. (Italics mine.) Cf. also the passage from Mr Burt quoted 
above on pp. 116, 117. 

TJ Loc. cit. Vol. II, p. 341. Cf. also p. 330: 'Reasoning may then he very well 
defined as the substitution of parts and their implications or consequences for wholes.' 



II. 10 SOME CHARACTERISTICS OF REASONING 187 

'is to have seen that every possible case of reasoning involves the 
extraction of a particular partial aspect [say a'] of the phenomena 
thought about ['Br], and that whilst Empirical Thought simply 
associates phenomena in their entirety, Reasoned Thought couples 
them by conscious use of this extract*' or abstracted essence. If, 
for example, in mathematical reasoning we mention ' force/ we mean f 
(that is, we think only of) force as defined by Newton: that which 
changes or tends to change a body's state of rest or of uniform motion 
in a straight line. No idea of force of character, or of a patent food, 
or of any of the multifarious meanings of the word in common speech, 
enters our consciousness. The neurogram excited is correspondingly 
limited. Or again, if, when reasoning about the physical properties 
of gold, we refer to its '5^ellow' colour, no thought of the yellow- 
press enters our minds ; and the excited (portion of my) neurogram of 
' yellow ' is correspondingly limited. (But when we try to reason about 
'education' or about 'character' we commonlj^ fail similarly to 
restrict the excited systems of neurograms; and, in so far as we do 
so fail, our thinking partakes of the nature of day dreaming — common 
associative thinking — rather th an of reasoning .) 1 1 is because voluntary 
concentration of excitement is characteristic of all reasoning, that 
reasoning is pre-eminently a process of voluntary (willed) thinking. 

For another reason also, concentration is of extreme importance 
in the reasoning process. According to our second law of thought, 
the greater the concentration of excitement in any one of the linked 
neurograms — say, in a' — that make up the new path from A to Z (in 
Fig. 10, p. 178), the greater, in general, will be the number of neural 
arcs into which the excitement diffuses. The greater therefore will be 
the number of neurograms {¥, h" , ...) from among which the Will may 
choose one (b') in which to concentrate excitement next. In other 

* William James gives another reason why particular partial aspects, or 
essences, of concrete facts are used in reasoning instead of the complete facts 
from which they are extracted. Thus he asks ' Why are the couplings, consequences, 
and implications of extracts more evident and obvious than those of entire 
phenomena ? ' And he answers this question by pointing out firstly that ' the 
extracted characters are more general than the concretes, and the connections 
they may have are, therefore, more familiar to us, having been more often met 
in our experience.' He continues 'The other reason why the relations of the 
extracted characters [thought of as a'] are so evident is that their properties are 
so few, compared with the properties of the whole [S, for example], from which 
we derived them. In every concrete total the characters and their consequences 
are so inexhaustibly numerous that we may lose our way among them before 
noticing the particular consequence it behooves us to draw. But, iif we are lucky 
enough to single out the proper character, we take in, as it were, by a single glance 
all its possible consequences.' {Loc. cit. Vol. 11, pp. 341, 342.) 

t See above, p. 45. 



i88 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 10 

words, the greater a man's power of concentration, the greater ceteris 
paribus will be his choice of new* paths for his reasoned thought and 
the greater therefore will be his chance of finding a solution for his 
conflicts, a way out of unprecedented situations f . 

Diffusion, as we said, follows concentration. The variety of 
different ideas that may occur to me during the diffusion stage (from 
a' , say) does not depend only upon my Will, my power of concen- 
trating attention on the matter in hand and so of multiplying the 
excitement as to make it flow into every connected neurogram and 
into some other neurograms not previously connected with a' . It 
depends also upon a general neural feature, which we have defined 
and called Cleverness J, and which we may here loosely describe as a 
capacity for forming new associations (due, perhaps, to innatelj'^ low 
thresholds between brain neurones) . And it depends upon my relevant 
knowledge: that is, upon the number of my neurograms already 
connected with a' . The greater my Will, my Cleverness, and my 
knowledge of the matter in hand, the greater will be the number of 
associated thought-activities that may appear on the fringe of my 
consciousness as I concentrate my attention on a' ; or, in other words, 
the greater will be the number of the neurograms into which excite- 
ment diffuses from the neurogram a' in which it has been concen- 
trated. My chance of successfully completing the reasoning process 
by finding a new path Aa'h' . . . z'Z from ^ to Z therefore depends upon 
my Will, my Cleverness, and my relevant knowledge. 

* On p. 121 above we have quoted, from Dr Webb's table of corrected co- 
efificients, r^g = -4'j as the coefficient of correlation obtained in his investigation 
between Originality and 'g.' The corresponding coefficient between Originality 
and Cleverness is given in our Table III, p. 127 above, as '88. We now see why ',?' 
should enter so considerably into the constitution of Originality, so that Originality 
does not depend on Cleverness alone. If, as we have seen reason to believe, 
'g' is educable, Originality can be increased by the development of ' g.' 

t Cf. above, p. 135. J See above, p. 123. 



CHAPTER 11 

THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 

§ I. The World of Experience. 

Now my knowledge employed in reasoning about the 'real' world, 
the world of experience, must itself fit experience if the new path, 
formed by reasoning, is to lead to a solution of the conflict. That is to 
say — if we follow William James in his lectures on ' Pragmatism,' or 
Hans Driesch in his 'Gifford lectures,'* and regard that which fits 
experience as being, so far, true — the steps in our reasoning process 
must each be true. This characteristic of the reasoning process we 
have now to examine at some little length. 

Let us first illustrate our statement that the steps in successful 
reasoning about the world of experience must themselves fit experience. 
If, in our example of the stuck metal lidf, the organisation of my 
neurograms — the neural correlative of my knowledge — had not corre- 
sponded with that of the 'real' world, I should have failed to unscrew 
the lid. Thus, if I had wrongly supposed that the metal of the lid 
contracted on being heated (whereas it 'really' contracted on being 
cooled), an idea 512H of the lid being too hot (instead of the idea Jj' of 
its being too cold) would have followed a' into the focus of my 
consciousness; and the neurogram W would have diverted the ex- 
citement from the true path Aa'b'c' ... z'Z by which Z could be reached. 
In fact, the failure of my neurograms (where W instead of 6' was 
connected with a') to fit the world of experience (where the object of 
my thought, t)', was connected with the object of my thought, a') 
would have prevented me from solving the problem or resolving the 
conflict. So we repeat that, for successful reasoning about the 'real' 
world, each link in the chain of neurograms must correspond to a 
'real' fact. 

There are such facts in the world of our experience. Suppose for 
example that £'j, and E^ are two successive elements in a chain of 
neurograms by which, in reasoning about the 'real' world, A has 
been connected with Z. We write £,, and Eq — instead of capital 
letters (e.g. P, Q) which we commonly employ to denote neurograms 
of complete concrete things — in order to remind ourselves of the 
* Vol. I, p. 7. t See above, pp. 178, 180, 181. 



igo THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 11. l 

strict localisation of neural excitement during reasoning: Ej, and Eq 
are neurograms of 'particular partial aspects' (Ej, and Eg, say) or 
'essences' — extracted abstract characters — such as are always used 
in reasoning*. 

It will be convenient to extend the system of symbols already f 
described by using Roman letters to denote those facts % or essences 
to which correspond neurograms denoted by the same letters in Italic 
type. Thus, if A represents a fact or essence, the thought-activity, or 
idea of A, which enters my field of consciousness when I think of 
A is represented by ^, and the neurogram whose excitement, in whole 
or in part, accompanies my every idea (^) of that fact (A) is repre- 
sented by A . 

By saying that the link between £j, and E^ must correspond to 
a 'real' fact, we mean that, in the world of experience, the essences 
Ej, and E, 'involve or imply each other. One of them is a sign to us 
that the other will be found. They hunt in couples, as it were.'§ And 
the world in which we live does present a number of abstract (general) 
characters which affect such constant habits of mutual concomit- 
ance, or repugnance. In our world 'such a proposition as that E^ is 
E,,, or includes E,, or precedes or accompanies E,, if it prove to be 
true in one instance, may very likely be true in every other instance 
which we meet. This is, in fact, a world in which general laws obtain, 
in which universal propositions are true, and in which reasoning is 
therefore possible.' |1 

Now the general characters whose habits of mutual concomitance 
are best established are those which natural science has defined. And 
among the expressions of such habits, whether in statements of 
particular facts (as that 'E^, is E^') or of general laws (as that 'what- 

* See above, p. 187. * On p. 70 above. 

X See below, p. 191. 

§ W. James, loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 337. Cf. also Poincare {loc. cit. p. 17): 'The 
most interesting facts are those which can be used several times, those which 
have a chance of recurring. We have been fortunate enough to be born in a world 
where there are such facts. Suppose that instead of eighty chemical elements we 
had eighty millions, and that they were not some common and others rare, but 
uniformly distributed. Then each time we picked up a new pebble there would 
be a strong probability that it was composed of some unknown substance. Nothing 
that we knew of other pebbles would tell us anything about it. Before each new 
obj ect we should be like a new-born child ; like him we could but obey our caprices 
or our necessities. In such a world there would be no science, perhaps thought 
and even life would be impossible, since evolution could not have developed the 
instincts of self-preservation. Providentially it is not so; but this blessing, like 
all those to which we are accustomed, is not appreciated at its true value. The 
biologist would be equally embarrassed if there were only individuals and no 
species, and if heredity did not make children resemble their parents.' 

II Cf. W. James, Vol. 11, p. 337, 



II. 11. 1 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 191 

ever includes Ej, includes Eg'), those which best fit experience, and 
are therefore most true, are those which natural science has taught 
us. These co-called 'scientific facts' and 'laws of Nature' summarise 
human experience of our world in carefully defined terms. In short, 
those statements of fact or law that are most true are also most 
precisely defined: they are statements of definite facts. They do not 
deal directly with things as wholes, with concrete things, but with 
extracted characters, essences, or abstracts. The concrete things of 
our experience are far too complex, and our ordinary (non-scientific) 
thoughts of them are far too ill-defined, for us to be able to make 
true general statements — true 'universal propositions' — about their 
relations to each other. So we cannot reason about them. Our 
neurographic imagery will help us here again: for we have already* 
seen how complex and ill-defined is the neurogram of any familiar 
concrete thing, and how necessary it is for successful reasoning that 
we should concentrate excitement in some narrowly defined portion 
of any such wide system of inter-connected arcs that may be excited 
during the reasoning process. 

We have just been using several different words to describe the 
world of our experience and its subdivisions : general characters, facts, 
laws, definite facts, concrete things, essences and abstracts. Some 
simplification and definition of our terminology is necessary before 
our enquiry can proceed. 

We shall therefore in future use the word thing to denote any 
portion of the real world, assuming for the purpose of this definition 
that the world of which we have experience is a reality independent 
of our sensations or other thought-activities. 

We have next to distinguish between a thing in itself — a part (or 
perhaps the whole) of the real world — and things as we believe them 
to be. We shall accordingly use the word fact to denote a thing as 
it is generally assumed and defined to be, after verification that the 
'fact' fits all available previous experience of the thing. 

The word essence we shall use to denote such a particular partial 
aspect of a fact as can only be thought of as a whole or not at all: 
an 'all or none' part of the world of experience f. To an essence 
there corresponds, in the brain of anyone to whom the essence is 
known, a neurogram-element, which we define as a system of nervous 

* See above, p. 187 

f The meaning of ' essence ' thus defined will become clearer in the sequel. 
Meanwhile we may take as an illustration the atom of hydrogen (or of any other 
element) as first thought of by Dalton and his followers before the disruption 
and the structure of atoms began to be discussed by modern physicists. 



192 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 11. l 

arcs all of which are excited when the corresponding essence is 
thought of. 

Our reasons for making these definitions and distinctions will 
appear as our enquiry proceeds. We may however here observe that 
our object in distinguishing things in the real world ivom facts in the 
world of our experience is to avoid assuming the identity of things 
in themselves with the facts that we know. The identity may exist, 
but it is unnecessary for our purpose to assume it. According to our 
definition of a fact, the world of things behaves exactly as if it were 
identical with the world of facts: the facts, as we said, fit experience 
and are therefore ' true.' Indeed, everything has happened as if our 
facts were indistinguishable from the real things they represent. And 
if some new experience of things does not fit the then known facts, 
the new experience will alter the old facts*, and the new facts that 
take their place will again fit all available previous experience. 

For the present we shall concern ourselves with facts rather than 
with the things-in-themselves which these facts represent. And our 
word 'fact ' may denote any portion of the world of experience, however 
complex or however simple f , but always including whatever invariably 
accompanies it J. So the whole world of experience is a single fact; 
and so also is every subdivision of it down to the simple fact, which 
consists of a single essence such as we have just defined, together with 
whatever other essences invariably accompany it in the world of 
experience. 

Moreover, a fact, as we have defined it, is always definite: it is 
a strictly limited portion of the world of experience. We shall have 
more to say on this point later on§. Meanwhile we note that science 
concerns itself with such definite portions of the world of experience. 
Facts, as we have defined them, are indeed the material with which 
science works. If examples are wanted of the manner in which science 
concerns itself with (definite) facts, and preferably with simple facts 
or even with essences themselves, rather than with whole concrete 

* As, for example, Newton's law of gravitation has been altered by the 
confirmation of Professor Einstein's prediction concerning the bending of the 
path of light in passing near the sun. 

f It is true that the word ' fact ' is often used to denote the relationship between 
two simpler portions of the real world as when we say 'it is a fact that A is B.' 
Used in this sense the word fact denotes something in which at least two elements 
are distinguishable: so that the neurogram in such a fact would be composed of 
at least two distinguishable elements. But in common parlance the word fact is 
also used to denote a thing which is not necessarily composite, or in which two 
or more elements are not necessarily distinguishable. Thus G. K. Chesterton speaks 
of 'such facts as Death or Daybreak.' (The Nation, February, 1918.) 

X See below, p. 213. § See below, p. 214. 



II. 11. 1 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 193 

things, they are easily found. The point and line, for example, about 
which Euclid reasoned are not the point and line as we know them. 
We have no direct experience of a point without magnitude, or of a 
line without breadth. But, for the purpose of arriving at true universal 
propositions through geometrical reasoning, we extract the character 
of position from the point as we know it, and the character of length 
from the line as we know it; we define the point or line as being, for 
all geometrical purposes, equivalent to these simple general characters ; 
and we deal only with the abstracts thus defined. In the same way, 
the gold (or other substance) whose properties the chemist investigates 
and about which he reasons, is not the gold which the plain man 
knows — the measure (as he is too apt to think) both of men's work 
andof God'sgifts — but its extracted character, the element Au, charac- 
terised no less by its chemical properties, or by the pink colour of 
gold vapour or of gold ruby glass or the green translucence of gold 
leaf, than by the yellow sheen of the minted sovereign. 

But the facts of which we have been speaking, although definite 
and far more simple than the blurred and hazy impressions which are 
all that men retain of most of their experiences of the real world, may 
still possess a considerable degree of complexity. The chemist's gold 
for example, although it is far simpler than that of common speech, 
possesses multifarious chemical, physical, mechanical and other 
properties. For reasoning purposes it is necessary, as we said*, to 
abstract from the impressions we retain of our experience, and to 
define I, not merely a fact, which though definite may be complex, 
but some essences — particular partial aspects — of the fact J. In this 
process of abstraction, the impression with which we start is, we 
suppose, the result of a direct experience of some complex, concrete 
thing, part and parcel of the real world itself. When we abstract 
from it some particular partial aspect or essence, we are not of course 
altering the thing itself, but only our thought about the thing. For 
example, when we abstract from our impression of the complex 
concrete thing which we call the ' point of a pin ' the essence of its 
position in space, the pin point still remains an unaltered part of the 
universe. The process of abstraction may therefore seem to be taking 
us away from the real world. We may seem to be describing as 
essences, and therefore as partial aspects of facts, what does not 

* On p. 187 above. 

t This definition will sometimes involve the invention of a new word which, 
as Poincare says (loc. cit. p 28), will often be sufficient to bring out the newly 
discovered relation and the word will be creative. 

X Cf. p. 214 below. 

G. E. 13 



194 THE AIM OF EDUCATION . II. 11. i 

belong to the real world as we experience it. But that is not our 
intention : we only describe as facts or essences what does fit experience. 
In other words, it is only those abstracted portions of the world of 
experience which, as we reason about them, yield verifiable conclusions 
— or, in short, those which fit experience — that we shall speak of as 
essences or facts. 

§2. The Endarchy of Science. 

The definite facts with which science is concerned are no mere 
conglomeration of disconnected items, all equally significant or equally 
insignificant. On the contrary, each has its proper place in an orderly 
system of relationships. ' Scientists believe,' says Poincare, ' that there 
is a hierarchy* of facts.' f Otherwise — that is if all facts and all 
essences were equally significant, important, or valuable — we should 
know a continually decreasing proportion of the real world; for, as 
Poincare points out, ' However great our activity, facts outstrip us, 
and we can never overtake them; while the scientist is discovering 
one fact, millions and millions are produced in every cubic inch of 
his body.' % But if, as we said, the facts and essences with which 
science is concerned are not all equally important, we may select and 
get to know the more important of them, and so acquire true know- 
ledge of an increasingly valuable proportion of the real world, even 
though relatively unimportant things are gaining on us all the while. 

If now we enquire what exactly we mean by one essence E^ being 
more significant, important, or valuable than another essence E^ to 
any one of us personally, we shall find that the neurogram of the 
first is deeper than the neurogram of the second: so that, during 
involuntary thinking, E^ is more likely (other things being equal) to 
be excited than £g. But what has made jE^j ^^^P^r than £g? It may 
have been that £'j, has been more frequently excited than Eq because, 
in the world of our personal experience, E^, is of commoner occurrence 
than Eg; or it may have been that Ej, is more closely connected than 
£g with affective-conative elements. But, whatever it be, the result 
is that (Jgj, recurs more frequently than (Jf^. In short, the most 
important facts for each of us are those of which we think most 
frequently. 

* Or, as we have said (p. 163), 'endarchy.' See below, p. 195. 

f Loc. cit. p. 16. 

X Loc. cit. p. 16. For Poincare's purpose it was not necessary to distinguish, 
as we have distinguished, between a fact and the thing it represents. In our 
terminology it is things that are being produced in such numbers that, however 
great our activity, they outstrip the facts by which we strive to represent them. 



II. 11. 2 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 195 

Now the order of importance of most essences which any science 
has abstracted, named, and defined, is much the same for every 
student of that science. The same is true of many facts that comprise 
large numbers of essences. For example, every student of mechanics 
would regard Newton's laws* of motion and his laws* of gravitational 
attraction as being more important than Kepler's laws* of planetary 
motion ; for the former are of far more frequent use — they recur more 
frequently — than the latter; and indeed the latter may be deduced 
from the former, although historically Kepler's laws preceded those 
of Newton. Thus the facts of natural science have much the same 
order of importance to different persons. We conclude that there is 
an order of importance belonging to those facts themselves — or at 
least to the essences! into which they may be analysed — and inde- 
pendent of the order of their importance to any particular person. 

But these essences have to be altered from time to time to fit new 
experience. Let us however imagine a time when the whole real 
world is known to science, so that every thing is completely repre- 
sented by a fact. Let us call the facts of that day complete facts, and 
essences as they then exist f act- elements . Complete facts and fact- 
elements then fit all experience, and not merely experience hitherto 
available, as is the case with the (incomplete) facts and essences pre- 
viously defined. The order of importance that we have just seen to 
belong at any time to the essences then known will alter to fit new 
experience until, with the arrival of the distant age that we have 
imagined, it assumes a final form : an order of importance belonging 
to fact-elements. This ultimate order is implied by Poincare when he 
speaks of scientists believing that there is a hierarchy of facts | . 

Now we have already § used Poincare's word 'hierarchy' in 
connexion with a series of relations that may be satisfied by the 
correlations between mental qualities. We shall therefore replace 
Poincare's word by our word ' endarchy.' || That the organisation of 
thought which Poincare describes as 'a hierarchy of facts' has the 
form ascribed to an endarchy by our definition will appear as we 
proceed. Poincare's hierarchy of facts we shall therefore describe as 
'the endarchy of science,' or sometimes as 'the impersonal endarchy.' 
We may for the moment define it as consisting of the fact-elements 

* All these laws were facts so long as they fitted experience (see p. 192). 
That they are not, strictly speaking, facts to-day need not impair their usefulness 
for the illustration in the text. 

f See p. 217 below for a definition of the 'value' of an essence. 

X See above, p. 194. 

§ On p. 104 above. See also Appendix B, below. || See above, p. 163. 

13—2 



196 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 11. 2 

of the world of experience arranged in the order of their intrinsic 
importance. We thus distinguish it from all the various personal 
endarchies* with which we shall also be concerned. Reserving our 
definition of these personal endarchies until later, it is sufficient to 
state here, briefly and vaguely, that they consist of the essences of 
the world of experience arranged in the order of the importance which 
they appear to us individually to possess; or, what amounts to the 
same thing, the order of the depth of the corresponding neurogram- 
elements in our respective nervous systems. 

But these definitions of the endarchy of science and of personal 
endarchies are alike inadequate. The endarchy of science is something 
more than a mass of disconnected fact-elements graded according to 
their relative importance. It is rather an organised body of connected 
facts. It is indeed no less than the world of experience interpreted 
by science: 'the neat, trim, tidy, exact world which is the goal of 
scientific thought.' f It is a mode of conceiving our world, a mode 
which fits experience — enabling future events to be accurately fore- 
told J — and a mode which is therefore true§. But we can no more be 
sure that the endarchy of science is true absolutely — that the end- 
archical organisation we are about to describe belongs to absolute 
things in themselves, as well as to the facts by which science represents 
them — than we can be sure of absolute truth in any other connexion. 

The goal of scientific thought has not yet been reached. The 
endarchy of science is still very far from being complete ||. But 
several, more or less separate, partial endarchies — or, as we shall 
later find reason to call them, 'subject' endarchies — have been 
developed by particular sciences or branches of science; and these 
partial endarchies from time to time become linked together, as 
when Rutherford and Soddy shewed that the chemists' atom had 
a structure for the physicists to investigate, or when Moseley went 

* See below, chapter 12, especially pp. 231 et seq. 

f A. N. Whitehead, The Organisation of Thought (Presidential Address to 
Section A, British Association, Newcastle, 1916), p. no of reprint. 

X E.g. the endarchy of science is even now sufficiently complete, in one part, 
to enable astronomical events to be foretold two years ahead in the Nautical 
Almanac. § See above, p. 189. 

II In what follows we shall, however, have occasion to speak of the complete 
endarchy which is the goal of scientific thought; and, without committing our- 
selves to the view that the endarchy exists before science has built it up and 
organised it, we may speak of this development of the endarchy of science as its 
'discovery.' Of course, it may exist before and so be truly 'discovered.' Kepler 
thought so when, after having discovered the laws which bear his name, he 
prayed: 'We think Thy thoughts after Thee, O God.' But, compare W. James: 
'classification and conception are purely teleological weapons of the mind.' (Loc. 
cit. Vol. II, p. 335.) 



II. 11. 2 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 197 

on to prove that the earlier empirical classification of chemical 
elements depended upon the physical constitutions of their respective 
atoms. And so we conceive of the complete endarchy of science, the 
goal of scientific thought, as a single whole built up by uniting the 
various partial endarchies which particular sciences aim at developing. 
These particular sciences are not confined to branches of natural 
science. The discovery of partial endarchies — portions of the complete 
endarchy — is no less the object of history or of theology than it is of 
physics, chemistry, or biology. 

We have already* remarked that the world of experience does 
not stand still while we are getting to know it and organising our 
thought about it. It follows that to-day's world of present and past 
experience is not the same as the neat, trim, tidy, exact world which 
will form the complete endarchy of science when the goal of scientific 
thought has been reached. But the latter includes the former; so 
that, as we organise our thought about the world of experience as 
we may now know it, we are approaching the goal of scientific thought 
and building up the organised system of knowledge which, when 
complete, will be the endarchy of science. 

§ 3. Growth of the Endarchy of Science. 

What we know of the partial endarchies can teach us something 
of the origin and nature of the complete endarchy of science which 
is gradually built up into a single organisation as scientific thought 
advances towards its goal. 

The first stage in this advance has already f been indicated. It 
consists in abstracting, from our blurred and hazy impressions of the 
world of experience, some clearly defined particular partial aspects: 
the essences that we have already defined. Each abstracted essence 
is more general than any one of the impressions from which it is 
abstracted. For example, when we abstract the essence 'carnivor' 
from our impression of a large number of dogs and cats and other 
flesh-eating animals, the essence carnivor is more general — in that 
it occurs more frequently in the world of experience — than any one 
of the dogs, cats, or other animals in question J. The abstraction is 
effected by thinking of a number of impressions (which may have 
been obtained by experiment for this very purpose) all of which 

* See above, p. 194. 
t See above, pp. 187 and 193. 

% Cf . W. James : ' the extracted characters are more general than the concretes.' 
(Loc. cit. Vol. II, p. 342.) 



igS THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 11. 3 

contain the same particular partial aspect or essence combined with 
different {pro hac vice) non essential elements*. 

This first stage may be regarded as consisting of analysis pure 
and simple. But the next stage begins the synthesis of facts by means 
of the further analysis of (impressions of) experience. In the first 
stage, a number of separate essences are obtained ; and, until this stage 
has been reached, it is impossible to think of any of these essences 
except as an indistinguishable part of a much larger total experience. 
In the second stage, a new (second-stage) essence is abstracted from 
experience and directly connected — in the intimate and permanent way 
we are about to describe — with two or more of the essences abstracted 
in the first stage. Thus the essences abstracted in the second stage of 
the process connect groups of those abstracted in the first stage. 

Let us explain that the connexion between the first and second 
stage essences is no mere fortuitous association in space or time. The 
connexion of which we are here speaking is something intimate and 
permanent. We may make this clearer by describing the second stage 
in a little more detail. Suppose, for example, that, at the very beginnings 
of language, men's experience had made them familiar with trees of 
different kinds and with wooden objects of different shapes and uses; 
and suppose that the first stage of scientific thought about these 
experiences had been reached, by the separation or extraction of ideas 
of the several trees and other objects from the total experiences of 
which a thought of one of the trees or other objects only formed part, 
and then by further extracting and naming some single essence in 
the fact of each of these objects as then thought of. And then suppose 
that the second stage of scientific thought about the experiences in 
question was reached by the abstraction for the first time of the 
essence 'wood' from all the pre-existing mass of experience of trees 
and other wooden objects. The new essence is a particular partial 
aspect of each of the facts; so it unites all these facts and, at the same 
time, it connects what were previously only known as separate 
essences. Or, symbolically, suppose that, in the first stage, a group of 
independent essences, E^, E^, ..., E„, has been abstracted and that, 

* Cf . W. James' law that ' in order to be segregated [or abstracted] an experi- 
ence must be repeated with varying concomitants.' [Loc. cit. Vol. ii, p. 357.) Cf. 
also W. James, loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 506. 

Or again: 'What does the scientific man do who searches for the reason or 
law embedded in a phenomenon? He deliberately accumulates all the instances 
he can find which have any analogy to that phenomenon; and, by simultaneously 
filling his mind with them all, he frequently succeeds in detaching from the 
collection the peculiarity which he was unable to formulate in one alone....' 
(W. James, loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 346.) 



II. II, 3 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 199 

when all the available instances of all these essences are accumulated 
and surveyed, a new essence, E, — so intimately connected with each 
of them that, whenever any one of them occurs in the world of ex- 
perience, it (E) occurs too — is detached from the collection. Then the 
connexion of the second stage essence, E, to each of the first stage 
essences, Ej, Eg, ..., E„, is of the kind we have in mind. In all the avail- 
able experience, none of the ' derived ' essences Ej , E^ , . . . , or E„ occurs 
without the essence E. Whenever any of the essences E^, Eg, .••, E„ 
appears, it is a sign that the fact, E^E, E2E, ..., or E„E, is present. The 
second stage essence, E, is common to all these facts and so unites* them ; 
it is more general than any of them ; it recurs more frequently in the 
world of experience, and is therefore more important], not only in 
the personal endarchies of individual men of science, but also in the 
endarchy of science itself; and, since it is part and only part of each 
of the facts in question, it is also more simple than they are. 

The second stage, therefore, of progress towards the goal of 
scientific thought consists in abstracting from the complex impres- 
sions of experience, and in naming |, new essences which connect 
together groups of those abstracted in the first stage and which are 
more important than they are in the (incomplete§) endarchy of science. 

* Cf . Poincare : ' Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different 
things' (loc. cit. p. 34), and so uniting them. 

f Cf. Poincare: 'If a new result is to have any value [or, as we have said in 
the text, "importance"], it must unite elements long since known, but till then 
scattered and seemingly foreign to each other, and suddenly introduce order 
where the appearance of disorder reigned.' (Loc. cit. p. 30.) 

If we wish to measure the importance or 'value' of a fact-element in the 
endarchy of science, we may define it as the sum of the values of the elements 
which are directly ' derived ' (see p. 203) from that fact-element. It is easy to see that 
this definition accords with our previous statement that the more important (or, 
as we may now add, the higher the value of) a fact in a personal endarchy, the 
deeper will be its corresponding neurogram. For the man of science, who has 
abstracted some essence (or 'reason' or 'law') underlying and uniting a number 
of previously disconnected phenomena, will in future tend to think of that essence 
whenever he thinks of any one of those phenomena, and the same will be true 
of any other scientific thinkers who accept his views. In each of their brains, 
therefore, the neurogram of the abstracted essence will be deeper than the neuro- 
gram of the remainders of the entire phenomena from which the essence has been 
abstracted. Or, if we imagine a being in whose mind the complete endarchy of 
science is organised, and who yet possesses a brain on the human model, it would 
be true of him that the deeper his neurogram of a fact-element the more important 
(valuable) that fact-element would be. (See below, p. 208.) 

X Cf. Poincare: 'The invention of a new word will often be sufficient to 
bring out the relation [between facts previously regarded as independent], and 
the word will be creative. The history of science furnishes us with a host of 
examples that are familiar to all.' (Loc. cit. p. 28.) 

§ We speak here of the incomplete endarchy of science to distinguish it from 
the complete endarchy which we shall speak of simply as the endarchy of science. 
The incomplete endarchy of science is at any time an intermediate stage then 



200 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION 



II. 11. 3 




Fig. 12. 



At the end of the second stage, the endarchy that has begun to 
be formed may be represented by the following diagram (Fig. 12), 

in which the lower lines represent the 
essences abstracted in the first stage, the 
upper line the new essence abstracted in 
the second stage, while each of the lower 
lines together with the upper line repre- 
sent * one of the group of facts which the 
abstraction of this new essence united. 

The third stage in the formation of 
the endarchy is like the second. It again 
consists in abstracting an essence which 
unites some new fact or group of facts 
to the endarchy that has begun to be 
formed in the second stage. The essence 
abstracted in the third stage may be con- 
nected — in the sense in which we have justf been using the word — 
either to the essence abstracted in the second stage (represented by 
the upper line in Fig. 12) or to one of the remaining essences (repre- 
sented by one of the lower lines in that figure). These two cases are 
represented in the following diagrams (Figs. 13, 14 and 15 respectively) . 
The first case may be illustrated by supposing that, in the first 
stage, the essences canis (represented by the line marked e^ in Fig. 13) 
and felis (^12) have been abstracted from vague general impressions 
that are denoted in common speech by the words dog and cat respec- 
tively, while at the same time the essences equus (^21) and bos (€22) 
have been abstracted from impressions of horses and oxen. In the 
second stage, the common essence carnivor (e^), connected to both 
the essences canis and felis, is further abstracted from impressions of 
dogs and cats, while the common essence ungulate (eg), connected 
to both equus and bos, is further abstracted from impressions of 
horses and oxen. In the third stage, the common essence mammal (e) 



reached in the development of the complete endarchy of science. The incomplete 
endarchy is related to the complete endarchy as essences are to fact-elements 
(see p. 195 above). 

* But only so far as this diagram (Fig. 12) goes. Each fact in the group 
includes not only the essences represented in the diagram by e and by one of the 
lower essences, e^, e^, ... , but also every other essence that invariably accompanies 
these in the world of experience. We shall see later (on pp. 203, 213) that the 
other essences of the fact that is represented, so far as this diagram (Fig. 12) is 
concerned, by the two line-elements e and e„ might be represented by a string 
of end-on line-elements extending from the top of e up to and including the 
central line-elements of the diagram (Fig. 16) on p. 204. 

+ From p. 198 on. 



II. 11. 3 



THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 



201 



is abstracted again from impressions of dogs, cats, horses and oxen 
and connects carnivors with ungulates. 

As an example of the second case, represented at the close of the 
third stage in Fig. 14, suppose that, at the close of the second stage 
when the dogs (eej) and cats (eeg) were first united b}^ the abstraction 
of the essence carnivor (e) connected both to the essence canis (ci) of 
dog and to the essence felis (eg) of cat, only one kind of member of 
the cat family — the domestic cat, for example — was known ; and that 
afterwards a new kind of cat — the lion, suppose — was discovered. 
At the end of the second stage the partial endarchy might be repre- 




Fig- 13- 



Fig. 14. 



Fig- 15- 



sented by the three line-elements e, e^ and eg arranged as in Fig. 14. 
In the third stage, the lion group is added to the nascent endarchy 
by abstracting from impressions of cats and lions a new essence, 
thereafter named felis, and represented in Fig. 14 by the line €2, and 
connected both to the essence (cgi) of domestic cat and to the essence 
(632) of lion. The fitting of the lion group into the endarchy involves 
a change in nomenclature. The word felis, which we have supposed 
to have been used before the discovery of lions to represent the {pro 
hac vice) essence of domestic cats, for the future* represents an 
essence {e^ common to domestic cats and to lions ; while the essence 

* I.e. at the close of the third stage represented in Fig. 14. 



202 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 11. 3 

of domestic cats is at the same time re-named felis catus and is 
represented by Cgi, and the essence of Hon, fehs leo, is represented 
by ^22. 

A third case, represented in Fig. 15, is perhaps better described 
as a continuation of the second stage than as part of the third stage 
in the formation of a partial endarchy. For in this third case no new 
essence is abstracted in order to add the essence of some new impres- 
sion to the nascent endarchy. For example, the discovery of a new 
variety (represented in Fig. 15 by eg) of an existing species (e), or the 
discovery of a new species (eg) of an existing genus (e), requires no 
new abstraction in order to fit the essence of the new experience into 
the existing endarchy. 

Subsequent stages in the progress towards the goal of scientific 
thought resemble the second and third stages that we have just 
described. At every stage new essences are abstracted from (im- 
pressions of) experience, and these new essences connect previously 
existing essences to partial endarchies, or partial endarchies to one 
another. So the formation of the endarchy of science proceeds until 
every essence is connected to every other, while every fact is united 
to every other by the possession of common essences. When at last 
the goal of scientific thought is reached, the whole knowable universe 
is thus organised and united. 

In Figs. 13 and 14 we have represented two different ways in 
which the third stage in the formation of the endarchy of science 
may be accomplished. In Fig. 13 the endarchy is represented as 
growing upwards or inwards; and in Fig. 14 as growing downwards 
or outwards. Every subsequent stage may be covered in either of 
these two directions. But we have to notice that the former, and not 
the latter, is the normal development of the endarch^^ The reason 
we shall discuss in more detail later. We may here, however, observe 
that it is the innermost — or highest — essences in each partial endarchy 
that are most important and are most likely to receive attention*. 
For this reason alone they are most likely to become connected through 
new subsequently abstracted essences that are connected to each of 
them. 

As this normal growth of the endarchy of science takes place, 
suppose that an essence, ^jc^ki-kn-tkn' ^^ abstracted in the first stage; 
that in the second stage a new essence, ^jcik^-kn-i' ^^ connected to the 
former in the manner discussed above f so that whenever E;;.^^., ...^^ 
occurs in the world of experience ^jcikz-kn-i occurs with it; and that, 
* See below, § 7 on pp. 216 et seq. f On pp. 198, 199. 



II. 11. 3 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 203 

in the third stage, there is abstracted anew essence, 'Ej,^j,^...j^_^, con- 
nected to E;fcjfc^...^_j just as Efc^fc^...fc^_j is connected to E„^j,.^...j^; 
and so on, until at last the central essence, E, of the whole endarchy 
of science is finally abstracted. Then, whenever E^i-^^fc^-fcrt occurs in the 
world of experience, Ej,^j,^...j^_^, E„^k^...k^_^, ...,Ej,^k^, E^^, and E 
occur with it. In other words, wherever the essence Ej^^j^^ ...^^^ appears, 
the whole fact E,,jjc^...jc^... E^ti^g-^fci E is present. We shall find it 
convenient to have a name and a symbol for a fact of this kind. We 
have already* called it a simple fact; let us now denote it by T^.^ ^^ ••• fcw 
We observe that whatever includes the simple fact Tjcik2-kn ^^^^ 
includes each of the simple facts T^-^ ^^2 ... fc^-i- •••> T^.^ jc^, T^.^ and T (=E) . 
But the converse is not true: whatever includes Tjc^jc^...jc^_^ does not 
necessarily include Tj^^k^-kn- 

The stages of progress towards the goal of scientific thought are 
conditioned in two ways by consideration of the use — namely, reasoned 
thought — to which the endarchy of science is to be put. The first 
condition is that the essences which, at any stage in the growth of 
the endarchy, are (directly) connected, as described on p. 198 above, 
by a single new essence shall be strictly limited in number. And the 
second condition is that there shall be only one direct path — only 
one path that does not turn back upon itself and so go over the same 
ground more than once — from any one essence (or fact-element) in 
the endarchy of science to any other. 

It is not difficult to see why the first of these conditions must 
obtain. This condition requires that the number of essences which 
are first connected by the abstraction of a single new essence shall 
not exceed some maximum number, m. Let us speak of the essences 
Ej, Eg, ..., E^ (represented, suppose, by the line-elements e^, €2, •-•, ^m 
in Fig. 12) which first become grouped together through a new essence 
E (represented by the line e) that is connected to each of them, as 
essences 'directly connected' to, or 'directl}^ depending on,' or 
'derived in the first degree' from, the essence E. Then the first con- 
dition requires that the number of essences derived in the first 
degree from any other essence in the endarchy shall not exceed m. 
The diagram in Fig. 16 on p. 204 represents the central portion of such 
an endarchy when w = 2 f and when every essence has the maximum 
number m of essences derived from it in the first degree. Any example 
of scientific classification will illustrate the need for this condition. 
Thus, when the number of different varieties of any botanical or 
zoological species becomes excessive, it is usual to group these varieties 
* On p. 192 above. f Of course, in practice m would be far greater. 



204 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION 



II. 11. 3 



into separate sub-species, so that only a limited number of sub-species 
may be ' derived ' from the single species, while the number of varieties 
'derived' from each one sub-species shall also be restricted. The same 
is true of all scientific organisations: of telephone exchanges, for 
example, or even of men. As the number of subscribers, whose private 




^22112 I 



Fig. i6. 



lines are brought together in a single exchange, increases, a point is 
reached when sub-division becomes necessary, and two or more 
exchanges take the place of one. And, as the number of men in an 
army increases, there arises a need, not only for more officers, but 
for more grades of officers, in order that no one officer shall have 
more than a strictly limited number under his immediate command. 



II. 11. 3 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 205 

or, in other words, deriving their authority directly from him. A 
national army of milHons needs more grades of officers than a city 
pohce force, and the British Navy than a fleet of merchant liners*. 
Indeed, a great army that possessed only a commander-in-chief, 
without subordinate officers or N.C.O.'s, might as well have no 
officers at all. And an abstracted essence or fact-element, which 
possessed an almost infinite number of immediate associations or 
connexions, might as well have none, for any use it or they would be 
likely to have in rational thinking f. We shall return to this point 
shortly when we come to discuss the use for reasoning purposes of 
the endarchy of science whose origin and nature we are now considering. 
The second condition — that there shall be only one direct path 
from any one element in the endarchy of science to any other — is 
illustrated in the diagram (Fig. 16) on p. 204. In this diagram there 
is only one path, made up of a series of directly connected end-on 
line-elements, along which it is possible to proceed from any one line- 
element to any other without traversing some element or elements 
more than once. But this merely illustrates what is meant by the 
second condition as we have stated it. For an example of the operation 
of the condition, we must look to those portions of the endarchy of 
science which are most perfectly organised. Thus the science of plane 
geometry, as formerly studied under the name of Euclid, was highly 
organised so far as it went, with the result that there was one and only 
one correct proof of many of the theorems and one and only one 
correct solution of many of the problems. The same is true in a less 
degree of other more imperfect branches of mathematics. It is the goal 
of scientific thought that the same condition should apply to all 
knowledge X . 

* Cf . the second paragraph (on p. 206) of footnote J below. 

f If, for example, in Fig. 10 on p. 178 the number of neurograms (5', b", ...) 
directly connected with a' had been very great, the chance of selecting the right 
one, b', for the purpose of reasoning out the new path Aa'b' ... z'Z would have 
been so small as to be negligible and the new path would have ceased with a' . 
In W. James' words: 'My thinking is first and last and always for the sake of 
my doing, and I can only do one thing at a time. A God, who is supposed to 
drive the whole universe abreast, may also be supposed, without detriment to 
his activity, to see all parts of it at once and without emphasis. But were our 
human attention so to disperse itself we should simply stare vacantly at things 
at large and forfeit our opportunity of doing any particular act.' {Loc. cit. Vol. 11, 

P- 333) 

% Another example of the operation of the second condition is furnished by 
zoological classification. The placental mammal having been separated from other 
groups (classes and sub-classes) of animals and having been sub-divided into 
sub-groups (orders), one of which had been named from its carnivorous habits, 
other flesh-eating animals, which were not placental mammals at all but marsupials, 
were discovered in Australia. If these flesh-eating marsupials were to be called 



2o6 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 11. 4 

§ 4. Maximal Endarchies. 

Both the first and the second condition that govern the formation 

of the endarchy of science are fulfilled by the endarchy represented in 

Fig. 16. But, in the endarchy there represented, every essence (except 

those in the outermost layer) has also the maximum number m of 

essences derived from it. We shall want a name for such an endarchy. 

Let us call it a 'maximal' endarchy. A maximal endarchy may thus 

be represented, as in Fig. 16*, by a single central line-element, e, from 

which m first ring or zone elements, e^, eg, •.., e^, radiate; while m 

second zone elements radiate from each of these first zone elements; 

and so on, the pth. zone containing m^ elements of which m are directly 

derived from each of the m^"^ elements in the (J) — i)th layer. A^th 

zone element f may be denoted by e^.^ j^^ ... fc^_^ ,f if directly derived from 

'carnivors' it would be possible to proceed from the element 'placental mammal' 
m the zoological (partial) endarchy to the element 'marsupial mammal' by two 
different paths: an upper path through the element 'mammal' from which both 
placental and marsupial mammal are derived; and a lower path through 'carnivor,' 
an element that would, under these circumstances, be derived both from placental 
and from marsupial mammal. Our second condition would then be infringed. 
In order therefore to satisfy our second condition, the main group of flesh eating 
marsupials was described as 'sarcophaga' instead of as 'carnivora." And, in 
general, Greek instead of Latin words were used to name sub-groups of marsupials. 

Our first condition is further illustrated by the fact that the large main group 
of flesh-eating placental mammals is said to form an 'order' while the much 
smaller main group of flesh-eating marsupial mammals is not said to form an 
order. The smaller partial endarchy of marsupials requires a smaller number of 
grades than the much larger partial endarchy of placental mammals. (But there 
is a good deal to be said in favour of using corresponding grades in sub-dividing 
the marsupial mammals as in the case of the placental mammals, even though 
they would not be needed for marsupials alone.) 

* In this diagram we have taken m=2. We have also placed line-elements 
belonging to the same zone or layer in rings, bounded by two concentric circles 
having their common centre in the middle of the diagram, so that successive 
zones of elements are arranged in circles about the centre of the diagram. We 
might equally well have placed elements belonging to the same zone in a layer 
bounded by two parallel straight lines, so that successive zones of elements would 
be placed one below the other. In that case what we shall describe as the most 
central element would have been described as the highest element; what we shall 
describe as an inner or outer zone, would have been described as an upper or lower 
layer; and what we shall describe as the outermost zone would have been described 
as the lowest layer. 

f An element in the pth zone connects any two or more elements in the 
(^ + i)th zone that are derived from it. In order to pass from one of the latter 
elements to another we therefore reckon it necessary to traverse the ^th zone 
element from which they are both derived. If then we calculate the number of 
elements traversed in going from every one of the w" elements in the wth zone 
to every other element in that zone, we find that the number is 

^ m-i ^ ' 

for this is the sum of a series of which the ith term is represented by 

25 — I 

^B-i-i-i (Mi - 1 ) ; 



II. 11. 4 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 207 

the {p — i)th zone element €j,^ jc^... ^^.^ , which is derived through the series 
of inner zone elements each of which is marked by one less of the 
suffixes k^, ^2 » "•' the second and first zone elements in the series 
being e^^ ^^ ^^^ ^fti respectively. The essence which is represented by 
the line-element efc^^^...^ in the diagram will be denoted by Ej,^;t2-fr»t 
in the endarchy of essences. 

We shall have to make further use of the maximal endarchy, the 
central portion of which is represented in Fig. 16, for the particular 
case in which the parameter m = 2. We shall continue to use 
Roman capitals to represent facts or essences, and we shall use 
corresponding Greek letters to denote corresponding line-elements or 
groups of line-elements in the diagram. The simple fact represented 
by the group of line-elements ej,^j,^...j,^, ej^^j,^... icn.i> •••' ^k^k^' ^ki> e will, 
as before*, be denoted by Tj^j.^-/!^ 5 ^-^^ the group of line-elements by 
which is the number of elements traversed in going from one nth zone element 
to a second connected with the first by a path that involves ascending through 
s zones. 

If Fp represents the frequency with which a line-element of the ^th zone is 
traversed in uniting every element of the nth zone to every other it may be shewn 
that 

\ 2m ) 



from which it follows that 



„ mH-i 
wP 

— Pr-* = m — — — 

F„ „ m + I 



2.m 
When therefore p is very large, the elements in any zone of the organisation are 
traversed m times as frequently as those in the zone next below. We have 
accordingly made the width of the Hne-elements in cur diagram, which represents 
the central portion only of an endarchy having a very large number of zones, 
m ( =2) times as great as those of the line-elements of the zone next below. 

If F'p is the frequency with which a line-element of the ^th zone is traversed 
in connecting any element of any zone further out than the pth to any other 
element of the same zone 

F' =m2«-p + w2<«-i'-P + ... +m2<«+i)-P-^^^-^^ {w^*"-"' + w2<«-i-P> + ... + w^} 
p ■zm 



-lLp+^.'M^'lldi 



which decreases as p increases, so that 

when p is large. It follows that, when p is large, the relative widths of the line- 
elements in our diagram represent the relative frequency with which those elements 
are traversed in proceeding from any element in any lower layer (or outer zone) 
to any other element in the same lower layer. 

If (cf. p. 217 below) the value of an element is proportional to the frequency 
with which it is traversed, it follows that the value of an element in the ^th zone 

is proportional to — - . 

* See above, p. 203. 



2o8 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 11. 4 

which it is represented will be denoted by Th^-ia-hn- We shall also 
find it convenient to denote by S;^^^^ •••*■« ^^^ 'branch' endarchy 
formed by the essence E^^ ji.^... j,^ together with all the essences derived 
from it; and the corresponding endarchy of line-elements will be 
represented by ojc^jc^...jc . So a 'branch' endarchy is a 'partial' 
endarchy or a 'subject ' endarchy. But a ' subject ' or ' partial ' endarchy 
is not necessarily a branch endarchy, since the latter contains all 
the essences or fact-elements derived from its highest essence or fact- 
element in the complete endarchy of science. If the complete endarchy 
of science is a maximal endarchy, so also is every branch endarchy*. 

If we imagine an omniscient being to whom the complete endarchy 
of science is known, but who nevertheless has a brain on the human 
model I , we may speak of neurograms corresponding to the various 
portions of the endarchy of science; and as before, we shall employ 
Italic capital letters to represent the neurograms, or systems of neuro- 
grams, which correspond to the facts denoted by the same capital 
letters in Roman type. So E, T and 5 denote the neurographic 
correlatives of E, T and S. But, when it is necessary to emphasise 
the imperfect correspondence between E, T and S and the neuro- 
grams of an ordinary mortal, these latter may be denoted by E', T' , 
and S' . 

Our diagram may therefore be taken to represent an endarchy 
of neurograms of which the deepest elements — deepest because they 
are on the average most frequently traversed as excitement passes 
from any one elementary neurogram represented by a lower, or outer, 
element in the diagram, to any other — are represented by the widest 
lines in the diagram J. It follows from the corollary § to our third 
law that, during involuntary thinking, excitement will always tend 
to flow from any part of such an endarchical system of neurograms 
towards the centre of the system ||. 

We propose now to shew that a maximal endarchy results when- 
ever 

{a) a multitude of originally disconnected (impressions of) 
experiences are connected together, first by abstracting from each a 
single separate essence, and then by successively abstracting new 
essences directly connected (in the manner we have described^) to 
each of a number of previously abstracted essences (and so uniting 
the facts of which they are particular partial aspects) ; but so that 

* See below, p. 210. f See footnote f on p. 199 above. 

J See footnote f on p. 206 above. § See above, p. 89. 

II Cf. p. 94 above. ^ See above, p. 198. 



II. 11. 4 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 209 

(b) this number never exceeds a maximum number m; and also 
so that 

(c) the average number of essences employed to hnk any one 
of the essences to any other is a minimum. 

Suppose that there are W* originally disconnected (impressions 
of) experiences. From each, in the first stage of the process described 
in paragraph (a), a single separate essence is abstracted. Let us 
represent these m^ separate essences by separate line-elements e^ , eg , • . . . 

In the next stage of the process a new essence is abstracted from 
every member of a group (not exceeding m in number) of the original 
impressions; and this new essence forms, according to paragraph (a), 
a connecting hnk between the various essences first abstracted from 
members of the group in question. We may represent this group of 
essences by the separate lines ej, 63, ..-, e^. (where m' does not exceed 
m) in Fig. 12 on p. 200. The new essence may be represented in that 
figure by the line e connected with each of the lines ej, e.^, ..., e^,. 
We have, at this stage, abstracted from each of the originally dis- 
connected impressions the simple facts partially* represented by two 
connected line-elements ecj, ee^, ••-, ee„j, respectively. 

So we may go on representing the abstracted essences by line- 
elements connected end-on, as in Figs. 13, 14 and 15, so long as we 
remember that no two of the essences which are ' derived in the first 
degree 'I from the same essence are connected to each other except 
through that essence. 

Since the various essences with which we are now concerned may 
thus be represented by line-elements, our proposition will be proved 
if we can establish the corresponding proposition for Hne-elements : 
namely, that a maximal endarchy results whenever 

(a) a multitude of disconnected line-elements are connected 
together by successively positing new line-elements directly connected 
to each of a number of previously existing line-elements; but so that 

(jS) this number never exceeds a maximum number m; and so 
that 

(y) the average number of line-elements employed to link 
together any two others is a minimum. 

This proposition — in terms of line-elements — is easily seen to be 
true. For the symmetry of a maximal endarchy shews that any 
two of the elements in the endarchy are, on the average, connected 

* See footnote * on p. 200; and also p. 207. f See above, p. 203. 

G. E. 14 



210 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. II. 4 

together by a minimum number of other elements*. And, since the 
maximal endarchy yields, under the conditions stated in paragraphs (a) 
and (/3), the minimum average path from any one element to any 
other, it appears conversely that, if the average path is to be a mini- 
mum, the organisation by which the elements are connected directly 
or indirectly to one another must be a maximal endarchy. 

It follows that the corresponding proposition for essences is also 
true. (We may however note in passing that, if paragraph (c) had 
been replaced by the condition that the whole number of abstracted 
essences was to be a minimum, the resulting organisation would not 
be a maximal endarchy but an organisation in which the first posited 
essence connected together m first stage essences, and each subsequent 
essence connected the last posited essence to w"~^ more of the original 
essences. Such an asymmetrical organisation would not of course 
satisfy the minimum path condition stated in paragraph (c). Nor 
would it be a maximal endarchy.) 

Now, as we have shewn, the organisation defined by paragraphs 
(«), {h) and (c) is a maximal endarchy in which, as we have already 
seen, 

{d) the ' number ' mentioned in paragraphs {a) and {h) is always 
the same and equal to m ; and 

{e) one and only one direct path leads from any one essence to 
any other. 

But paragraphs {a), (b) and {e) also define the endarchy of science. 
It follows that the endarchy of science differs from a maximal 
endarchy only in so far as paragraph (c) is not necessarily true of the 
endarchy of science. Since, however, it is evidently in the interest 
of efficient reasoning that every essence should be connected to every 
other through a minimum number of intermediate essences we may 
regard paragraph (c) as being true of the ideal complete endarchy of 
science which is the goal of scientific thought, although the statement 
in this paragraph (c) is not necessarily true of any partial endarchy 
already discovered. Accordingly, we may say that the complete 
endarchy of science is a maximal endarchy, although the various 

* Suppose that there are m''^ original hne-elements. If these be divided into 
^n-i groups of m, and the m members of each group are hnked together by the 
first m^"'^ new elements posited, and if these w"~^ elements first posited are in 
turn linked together in groups of m by the next m^~^ new elements posited, and so 
on, the resulting organisation is a maximal endarchy. We have said in the text 
that the symmetry of its arrangement is sufficient evidence that each pair of the 
original elements in the outermost layer is on the average linked together by a 
minimum number of the elements subsequently posited. In case this be not 
evident a demonstration is given in Appendix C, on p. 492 below. 



II. 11. 4 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 211 

partial endarchies, which are all that are known of the complete 
endarchy in its intermediate stages of development, are not themselves 
necessarily maximal endarchies. These discovered portions of the 
endarchy of science may not therefore fulfil the conditions stated 
in paragraphs (c) and (d) although they do satisfy paragraphs (a), 
(b) and {e). 

§ 5. Efficiency and Utility in Thought Organisation. 

It is worth while to observe here that, if we were perfectly free 
to choose the order in which the essences are abstracted, after the 
first stage of the process described in paragraph {a) *, and so to control 
the development of the endarchy of science, it would make for the 
greatest economy of effort spent in thought organisation that there 
should, at each stage, be one endarchy, rather than several endarchies 
to be afterwards linked together f. Indeed the efficiency of the effort 

* On p. 208 above. 

f For suppose that on the average the abstraction of every essence, after those 
abstracted in the first stage of the process described in paragraph (a), involves 
an equal expenditure of effort. Then the total effort, W,^, expended in forming a 
maximal endarchy having n zones or layers below its central element, will be 
measured by 

Wn = W"-l + W«-- + ... + I = 



m — 1 

If now we write m'^=N, so that N represents the number of originally separate 
essences linked up by the endarchy in question, it follows that, when iV (or «) 
is very large, W <k N. 

The number of elements linked together in this endarchy is 

m" + m"-^ + ... + m + I = . 

m — i 

The utility, U, of this endarchy for reasoning purposes may be measured by the 
number of pairs of elements which it connects together: so that 

„_ J /m^+^— i\ /w«+i-i _ \ _m / w"+^ - I \ /m" - i \ 
^ \ m -I J \ m-i J 2 \ m-i J \m - I / ' 

If therefore N is very large, U oc N^. 

The efficiency of the work done in constructing the endarchy is measured by 

U _ m m"+^ - I _ 
W~ 2 m-i 

or, when N is very large, ^j^ oc A^, if m remains the same. The efficiency of the 

organisation, ^, is then proportional to N. 

Now suppose that, instead of N originally separate essences being con- 
nected in one maximal endarchy, they had been connected in 5 equally large 
separate maximal endarchies so as to form 5 separate branches of science (see 
below, p. 215) with N' of the original N essences in each. We have then, 
N =:SN'. The utility of each of these separate endarchies is measured by U' x N'^, 

and the total utihty therefore oc SN'^ which = -o-- If iV is given, the total utiUty 

of the organisation is therefore inversely proportional to the number of separate 
maximal endarchies in which the original essences are organised. 

Meanwhile the work of organising the original essences in S separate maximal 

14—2 



212 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 11. 5 

expended in linking up a large number, N, of separate essences in 
S separate maximal endarchies, or separate branches of science*, is 
inversely proportional to the number, S, of these separate subjects f. 
It follows that the expenditure of effort in organising thought by 
forming maximal endarchies is more economical if concentrated on 
the development of a single maximal endarchy than if dissipated in 
the construction of several maximal endarchies. 

The same is true J of effort expended in organising, not now 
scientific thought as a whole, but the thought — and therefore the 
neurography — of some particular person. The efficiency of his reason- 
ing is more increased by a given expenditure of effort upon his education 
if that effort is directed towards linking up originally separate 
neurogram-elements§ into a single maximal endarchy than if it is 
expended in linking them up into several separate endarchies ||. 

endarchies is the same as that of organising them in a single maximal endarchy; 
for the work of organising each separate endarchy oc A" and the work of organising 
the original essences in S separate endarchies oc SN' = A' and is therefore the same 
as that of organising them in a single maximal endarchy. It follows that the 
efficiency of the work done (or effort spent) in organising a large number of separate 
essences in equal separate subject endarchies, each of which is a maximal endarchy, 
is inversely proportional to the number of these subjects. 

* See below, p. 215. 

f On p. 208 we pointed out that a branch endarchy was a subject endarchy 
although a subject endarchy was not necessarily a branch endarchy. So a branch 
of the complete endarchy of science (or, as in the text, a 'branch of science') is 
a subject, although a subject has not necessarily the form which our definition 
ascribes to a branch of science. See below, pp. 214, 215. 

I Cf. below, p. 223. 
§ See above, p. 191. 

II Thus for example, since U x N-x W~, the utility, U, of the result produced 
by a given expenditure of effort, W, whether by teacher or by taught or by both, 
upon a new subject, the study of which begins to form a new separate endarchy 
in the student's brain, will at first be very small, and will increase rapidly as the 
study proceeds and the new endarchy grows. If effort is expended uniformly, 
the total expenditure of effort, W, is proportional to T, the time given to the new 
subject. It follows that U x T^. It is doubtless for this reason that, when Govern- 
ment grants in aid of education are proportional to the number of student-hours 
(or, for a given number of students, to the number of hours they spend under 
instruction) — when therefore the amount of the grant is roughly proportional to 
the effort expended — the Board of Education has to impose the condition that, 
when the number of hours does not exceed a certain minimum, the grant shall 
not be in proportion to the number of hours, but shall be nothing at all. This 
condition is, we suggest, a crude attempt to make the grant approximately pro- 
portional, not to the effort expended (oc T) but to the utility of the result (oc J") 
or, what amounts to the same thing, to the product of the effort by its efficiency. 
Such a condition — that no grant will be paid for less than fourteen hours of 
instruction in a new subject — has figured in the Board of Education's Regulations 
for Technical Schools for many years past. Of late this regulation has been 
modified by a reduction of the minimum number of hours from fourteen to ten 
when the subject studied is not new to the student. This change in the regulations 
makes them fulfil more nearly the condition in the text, that the utility of the 
work done depends not only upon the effort expended but upon the size of the 
endarchy to the further development of which that effort has been directed. 



II. 11.5 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 213 

This conclusion has pedagogic consequences of very great import- 
ance*. 

§ 6. Subdivisions of Knowledge. 

Let us now imagine a diagram constructed on the Unes ol Fig. 16 
to represent the complete endarchy of science, each line-element 
representing an essence or fact-element f ; and let us enquire how the 
facts and essences which science abstracts from complex concrete 
facts of direct experience are represented in such a diagram. 

In the first place, remembering J that the endarchy of science 
normally develops from outside (or below) inwards (or upwards), we 
recognise that the essences, or fact-elements §, in the outermost layer 
or zone of the completed endarchy, are all that remain to distinguish 
the particular concrete facts of direct experience after those facts 
have been united together by successive abstraction of essences. 
Since every line-element in the diagram corresponds to one and only 
one fact-element in the endarchy of science, any outermost zone 
element of the diagram we are imagining will represent an essence, 
or fact-element, which occurs in only one simple fact|| and so dis- 
tinguishes a simple fact of direct experience. 

It follows at once from the account already^ given that a simple 
fact, '^]ciki--kp> is represented in the diagram by a series of end-on 
line-elements, beginning with €^.^1..^...^^ and ending with the central 
element e, each element of the series being directly connected** to its 
predecessor and to its successor. If €jc^^.^...j. belongs to the outermost 
zone of the diagram, Tj^^ y.^ ... ^ will bea ' simple fact of direct experience ' : 
the simplest portion of the world of experience that can occur alone. 
But if Cfc^ fc^ ... ;tp belongs to any other zone, T^^ ^^ ... ^^ is a simple abstract 
fact, which will only occur in the world of experience as part of 
concrete facts, facts of direct experience ff. We note that any simple 
fact is united to any other by the central essence at least, and in many 
cases by other essences that are also included in both. 

Thirdly, we have used the word fact to denote the whole of any 
portion of the world of experience; or, as we said before J|, a fact is 
any portion of the world of experience but always including whatever 
invariably accompanies it. Thus, in general, a fact consists of a 

* See below. Chapter 21, § 5. ' t See above, p. 195. 

X See above, p. 202. 

§ Fact-elements are by definition (p. 195) the essences that make up the 
complete endarchy of science. || See above, pp. 192, 203, 207. 

Tf See especially p. 203 above; and cf. p. 207. ** See above, p. 203. 

ff See footnote f on p. 214 below, and footnote * on p. 215. 
%% On p. 192 above. 



214 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 11. 6 

combination of 'simple facts.' Since, as we have just seen, all simple 
facts are united through their central essence or essences, every fact 
is a continuous portion of the world of experience. But a portion of 
the world of experience that constitutes a fact, need not be directly 
experienced, or be capable of being so experienced, by itself alone. 
In short, it need not be a concrete fact, a fact of direct experience. It 
may, indeed, be an abstract fact. But it must, we said*, be definite. 
We may define it by the simple facts which it combines, or even by 
the outermost (or 'boundary') essences of these simple facts f. Then 
the fact in question will consist of these boundary essences and of all 
the more central essences from which they are derived | . For example, 
the fact of gold with which science is concerned — although it may be 
an abstract fact, in that it is more simple and more general than any 
particular concrete lump of gold that might be directly experienced — 
includes all the essences that belong to gold in the endarchy of science 
and that will some day be abstracted from gold, as the chemist now 
knows it, and will link it to the central essence of the complete 
endarchy of science. So a fact will be represented in our diagram by 
a series of line-elements that represent the boundary essences of the 
fact (and that are not directly connected with each other), together 
with all those inner line-elements from which the boundary elements 
are severally derived. Any particular fact, and the particular neuro- 
gram that corresponds to it in the omniscient being imagined on p. 208, 
will be represented by a particular system of boundary line-elements 
and of inner elements from which the boundary elements are derived. 
No one of these line-elements can represent the whole fact. In other 
words, a fact has no single essence § (unless the fact in question is the 
central essence of the endarchy of science). We shall return to this 
point when we transfer our attention from the endarchy of science 
to personal endarchies||. 

A fourth subdivision of thought that will loom large in our enquiry 
is called a subject^. We shall use the word 'subject' to denote any 
combination of simple facts of direct experience — or, in short, a 

* On pp. 191, 192 above. " 

■f We define ^kiki---kp ^-s the 'boundary essence' of the simple fact Tj.,ij...j;j„. 
Every simple fact has therefore one, and only one, boundary essence. Only if this 
boundary essence is in the outermost zone of the endarchy of science, will the 
simple fact be one of direct experience. 

J See above, pp. 206. 207, where Ej.j j.^ •■■kp^i/cp is not only spoken of as directly 
derived from Ei.jj.j...j.p_j but also as (indirectly) derived from all the inner essences 
^kikz-icp-2'---' ^kik2 . Ej.j , E of the simple fact T,,,ki...kp- 

§ Cf. W. James: 'There is no property absolutely essential to any one thing.' 
(Loc. cit. Vol. II. p. 333.) ^ 

II See below, Chapter 12, § 3. If See above, pp. 208, 212. 



II. 11. 6 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 215 

(complex) fact of direct experience* — as known and studied at any 
given time before the endarchy of science is complete. It is true that 
many subjects, as they are known and studied to-day, appear at 
first sight to consist almost or altogether of abstract facts. While, 
however, the innermost essences and groups of essences in any subject 
are, as we have saidf, most valuable and most frequently thought of, 
the subject itself has been, as we saw J, built up as a partial endarchy 
from essences belonging to the outermost zone of the endarchy of 
science. We shall therefore regard these essences as still belonging 
to the subject, even when its students are for the most part concerned 
with its innermost essences. It is important to notice that, while all 
facts, whether simple or complex, have one or more of the central 
essences of the endarchy of science in common and are thus connected 
together, a subject, being a (complex) fact as known when the endarchy 
of science is incomplete, may be studied as an isolated branch of 
knowledge. Subjects may therefore be separate from one another, 
because the central essences of the facts they comprise, and that will 
ultimately connect them, have not yet been discovered. So subjects, 
as we have defined them, will be represented in our diagram § by a 
partial endarchy, or 'subject endarchy,' || of line-elements. 

The complete discovery of any of the simple facts contained in 
a subject will connect that subject to the centre of the endarchy of 
science. It is however conceivable that, at a certain stage of dis- 
covery, a subject endarchy might be co-terminus with a branch 
endarchy^, Sj^^j^^.^jc^. In that case every essence that belongs to the 
subject will be related to every other such essence exactly as in the 
complete endarchy of science. One whose thought is mainly concerned 
with the subject in question will then be tempted to think that the 
facts with which he deals are completely discovered. It is therefore 
important to remember that, however closely any particular partial 
endarchy may resemble a branch** of the complete endarchy of 
science, it has still to be connected with other subject endarchies until 
the goal of scientific thought has been reached. When Laplace, 
satisfied with the completeness of his account of celestial mechanics, 
and being asked by Napoleon whether it was true that he had written 

* We use this phrase to describe a concrete fact, one or all of whose boundary 
essences belong to the outerinost zone of the endarchy of science. 

f See above, pp. 194, 199. See also below, pp. 216, 267. 

X In § 3 of this chapter. 

§ Fig. 16 (on p. 204 above) supposed (see p. 213) extended to represent the 
complete endarchy of science. il See above, pp. 208 and 212. 

Tf See above, p. 208 and footnote t on p. 212. 
** I.e. a branch endarchy as defined on p. 208. 



2i6 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 11. 6 

a book about the heavens without once mentioning the name of God, 
rephed 'Sire, je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothese-la,' he is 
supposed to have meant that the facts of the starry heavens had 
been completely discovered, and did not include any spiritual ele- 
ments. But his famous epigram referred, not to the real heavens 
themselves, or even to all available experience of them, but to the 
facts of mechanical science so far abstracted from this experience. 
He probably meant no more than that these facts had all been 
fitted in to such a partial endarchy as we have described. 

We may remark in passing that the subdivision of knowledge into 
separate subjects, and the multiplication of professorial chairs and 
other teacherships which are concerned with one subject and one 
subject only, has brought about great progress in the discovery of 
many of these partial endarchies. But it has tended to obscure 
the unity of knowledge as a whole. As we multiply specialist thinkers 
in our universities and elsewhere, we must not forget the need for 
scientific philosophers who shall aim at discovering inter-relations of 
the several partial endarchies. There is still room for the Whe wells 
and the Jowetts who take as their portion all ' valuable ' knowledge, 
to whatever branch of science it belongs. 

§ 7. The Value of an Essence. 

We have already* spoken of essences differing from one another 
in importance or value according to the frequency with which they 
occur in the world of experience. It follows that the value of an essence, 
or fact-element, depends on its position in the endarchy of science. 
For, in the first place, every experience that includes the essence 
^kxki — kp ^Iso includes all the higher essences in the same simple fact 
Tfcifc2--fcp- Thus it follows from the manner in which the endarchy of 
science is built up, that the frequency with which any essence occurs 
in the world of experience is equal to the sum of the frequencies of 
occurrence of the simple facts of direct experience which that essence 
first unites, or (what amounts to the same thing) equal to the sum 
of the frequencies of occurrence of the outermost zone esserices derived 
from the essence in question; so that, if the value of an essence be 
measured by the frequency with which it occurs in the world of 
experience, its value is equal to the sum of the values of the outer- 
most zone essences that are derived from it | . If, as we have supposed, 
the endarchy of science is a maximal endarchy, and therefore satisfies 
condition {d) on p. 210, the value of every fact-element is m times as 

* See above, p. 199. f See iootnote f on p. 199 above. 



II. 11. 7 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 217 

great as that of any fact-element directly derived from it. The same 
would be approximately* true if the value of an essence were measured 
by the frequency with which it occurred as a link in reasoned thought f 
between any two other essences in the complete endarchy of science. 
For the future, therefore, we may measure the value of an essence or 
fact-element by the frequency with which that essence occurs |, 
whether in the world of experience or in reasoned thought about the 
world of experience ; and the measure is the same as that of the number 
of outermost zone essences derived from — or simple facts of direct 
experience united § by — the essence whose value is to be measured. 

This conception of the value of an essence or fact-element in the 
endarchj^ of science becomes clearer if we remember that, as the 
endarchy of science develops from without inwards (or from below 
upwards), partial endarchies may grow independently and, as we said, 
be from time to time combined by the discovery of a new essence 
which unites them. Suppose that, at any stage in the growth of the 
endarchy of science, a partial endarchy, of which the highest element 
is represented by e^.^ ^.^ ... ^ , has been completely discovered. The partial 
endarchy in question is then identical with the branch of science 

* See footnote f on p. 206. 

t Of the omniscient being already imagined : see footnote f on p. 199 and p. 208, 

J Cf. p. 194 above, where we said that the vahie of an essence to any particular 
person was greater or less according as the person in question thought of it more 
or less frequently. 

§ We may add here to the passage already quoted from Poincare in footnote f 
on p. 199: 'If a new result is to have any value, it must unite elements long since 
known, but till then scattered and seemingly foreign to each other, and suddenly 
introduce order where the appearance of disorder reigned. Then it enables us to 

see at a glance each of these elements in the place it occupies in the whole Our 

mind is frail as our senses are; it would lose itself in the complexity of the world 
if that complexity were not harmonious; like the short-sighted, it would only 
see the details, and would be obliged to forget each of these details before examining 
the next, because it would be incapable of taking in the whole. The only facts 
worthy of our attention are those which introduce order into this complexity 
and so make it accessible to us.' {Loc. cit. p. 30.) 

Cf. also Dean W. R. Inge on the 'Training of the Reason,' Cambridge Essays 
on Education, p. 12: 'The ideal object of education is that we should learn all 
that it concerns us to know, in order that thereby we may become all that it 
concerns us to be. In other words, the aim of education is the knowledge not of 
facts but of values. Values are facts apprehended in their relation to each other, 
and to ourselves. The wise man is he who knows the relative values of things. 
In this knowledge, and in the use made of it, is summed up the whole conduct 
of life. What are the things which are best worth winning for their own sakes, 
and what price must I pay to win them? And what are the things which, since 

I cannot have everything, I must be content to let go? How can I best choose 
among the various subjects of human interest, and the various objects of human 
endeavour, so that mj' activities may help and not hinder each other, and that 
my life may have a unity, or at least a centre round which my subordinate activities 
may be grouped.' (Italics mine. Cf . the passage quoted from W. James in footnote 

II on p. 238 below.) 



2i8 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 11. 7 

^kik2-kp and is represented in the diagram (Fig. i6 on p. 204) by the 
line-element €j,^ie2-kp and all the elements derived from it. Suppose 
further that other branches of science Sj,^j,^...k'p, ^kikz-k"p' •••> have 
been completely discovered but are as yet quite separate from S;^^ j.^ - ftp 
because the essence ^jcik2-kp-i has not yet been abstracted and con- 
nected to the j&th zone essences, Efc^fc^...;fcy, E;fc^;t2-fcy '^ki kz ... k''p. •••*• 

Then suppose that the essence ^kik2...kp-i is abstracted for the first 
time to connect the _^th zone essences of which we have been speaking. 
The discovery or abstraction of this new {p — i)th layer essences unites 
all these partial endarchies. It makes a long and valuable step 
forward towards the goal of scientific thought, the completion of 
the endarchy of science. 

We have followed W. James in avoiding the use of the words 
conception and concept in this discussion; but we may conclude our 
description of the endarchy of science by pointing out once more 
that it is a mode of conceiving the real world. It is not the things 
themselves that we break up into elements or essences and arrange 
and connect together in an endarchical organisation. It is rather our 
thoughts, or concepts, of these things, and the neurograms whose 
excitement accompanies the thought-activities in question, that are 
so treated. At the same time we must not imagine that it is only 
our concepts, or ideas of things, that we are able to alter and arrange. 
We can and do alter real things themselves. Surely our business here 
is not merely to know the world but to mould it ! Our own neurograms, 
for example, are part of the world and we change them as we change 
the organisation of our thought. Or, to take another example, we 
alter and enrich f the universal character of colour when, by the 
discovery of a new dye-stuff or in any other way, we produce a new 
colour effect. But in the main it is still true that it is not the real 
world, but our conceptions or thoughts of it and the neurograms whose 
excitement accompanies those thoughts, that we develop and modify 
as we gradually construct the endarchy of science for the purpose of 
economising effort and facilitating reasoned thought. 

And this endarchy of science, as we said before, fits the facts of 
experience and is therefore true. Why the universe, as we know it, 
fits into this conceptual scheme is another question. Perhaps the 

* Of course in practice (and, among other reasons, for that given on p. 194 
above) the discovery of the branch of science, Siij.j...jt^, is not likely to be even 
approximately complete before the discovery of any of the {p - i)th and inner 
zone essences, E,,,ki...kp-^. ^M^.-kp-^- ■■■■ ^k,k^. £*i. E from which it is derived. 

f Or, as we lately said, we add to its value when we add to the number of 
elements derived from it. 



II. 11.7 THE ORGANISATION OF THOUGHT 219 

answer is to be found in a progressive differentiation of parts as, 
according to Kant's nebular hypothesis or Darwin's account of the 
origin of species, the universe evolves from a common homogeneous 
origin, and as the parts of it, becoming differentiated, evolve and 
differentiate further. But probably the answer lies in the constitution 
of the human brain, which renders thinking most effective when the 
facts thought of fit in to such an endarchy of science as we have 
described. Such facts are selected, as Poincare says, for our attention. 
Meanwhile our rational thinking is perhaps ignoring other ' unscientific ' 
aspects of the universe. 

As we now turn from the consideration of the endarchy of science 
itself to that of the various personal endarchies, the teleological 
character of the endarchy of science will become still more apparent. 
For every fact of the endarchy of science, as it exists at any given 
time, is or has been part of some thinker's personal endarchy of facts ; 
and of the teleological character of these personal endarchies we shall 
soon have further evidence*. In W. James' words, 'The conceptual 
scheme is a sort of sieve in which we try to gather up the world's 
contents.... TA^s whole function of conceiving, of fixing, and holding fast 
to meanings, has no significance apart from the fact that the conceiver is 
a creature with partial purposes and private ends.' f 

* See below, Chapter 12, § i ; and p. 234. 

f Loc. cit. Vol. I, p. 482. The whole passage is very relevant. 



CHAPTER 12 

NEUROGRAPHIES 

§ I. The Nature of Individual Neurographies. 

We have roughly described an individual's personal endarchy as the 
essences of the facts of the world of experience arranged in the order 
of the importance which they appear to that individual to possess*; 
or, what amounts to the same thing, in the order of the depth of the 
corresponding neurograms in his nervous system f. But we have not 
yet seen that everybody's, or indeed anybody's, neurograms are con- 
nected together in the order of their depths or according to any other 
system. 

According to Professor Whitehead, the most obvious aspect of the 
field of actual experience is its disorderly character J. It would follow 
that the neurographic records of this experience must be equally 
lacking in organisation until scientific thinking has begun to organise 
them. Let us then avoid assuming at the outset that people's 
neurographies are generally organised on the lines of the endarchy 
of science that we have just been discussing, or indeed in any other 
manner. For the present, therefore, we shall speak of a person's 
neurography rather than of his personal endarchy. As we proceed we 
shall see how far the person's neurography tends, and how far, in the 
interests both of the individual and of the community in which he 
lives, his neurography ought to tend, to become organised as a single 
endarchical system corresponding as closely as possible to the endarchy 
of science. 

First then we have to observe that, for the following three reasons, 
every individual's ideas of the real world, or rather those of his 
neurograms whose excitement accompanies these ideas, tend to become 
organised in a maximal endarchy which corresponds to part of the 
endarchy of science. 

In the first place, the essential parts of the brain processes by 
which some one pioneer — who first took any particular step towards 
the goal of scientific thought — discovered some new essence in the 

* Above, p. 196. See also below, p. 231, for our definition of a personal 
endarchy. 

t See above, p. 194. % Loc. cit. p. no. Cf. footnote f on p. 264 below. 



II. 12. 1 NEUROGRAPHIES 221 

growing endarchy, must have been afterwards repeated in the brains 
of those who thought his thoughts after him and accepted his dis- 
covery, thereby estabhshing his new essence as part of the (incomplete *) 
endarchy of science. The same processes tend to be repeated again 
and again in the brains of later students. The student whose con- 
sciousness is as nearly as possible filled by the essential elements of 
the thoughts which were present in the mind of the discoverer of a 
new fact of science at the time of his discovery, may discover the same 
fact again for himself. This is the heuristic method of education. It 
leads to the gradual building up in the student's brain of a system of 
neurograms corresponding to the endarchy of science as it, too, gradu- 
ally developed. But time will not permit the ordinary student thus to 
rediscover for himself more than a very small fraction of the partial 
or subject endarchy which he is studying f. 

A second reason why every individual's neurography tends to 
correspond to portions of the complete endarchy of science, is that 
every boy and girl is likely to be taught, out of school as well as in 
school, what everyone believes to be true, including whatever is 
already accepted as part of the endarchy of science. In those branches 
of the complete endarchy of science whose discovery is most complete 
and most generally accepted, the correspondence between the complete 
endarchy of science and the personal neurographies of the students 
of that science is likely on this account to be most perfect. But, of 
course, no personal neurography can nowadays correspond even to 
the incomplete J endarchy of science as it exists at the present time. 
Much less possible is it that any individual neurography should 
correspond to the complete endarchy of science. 

In the third place, when we pass from considering the nature of 
neurographies to discuss how they are formed and organised, we shall 
find that an important factor in their development is the instinct- 
emotion of curiosity-wonder. And we shall see that this principal 
prime mover in the multiplication of connexions between the separate 
neurograms that result from separate and distinct experiences, tends 
always to link up hitherto separate systems of neurograms by con- 
necting their deepest elements. Thus, as we shall see, there tends to 
be built up, under the influence of curiosity-wonder, a maximal 
endarchy of neurogram elements. Suppose, for example, that somebody 

* See above, footnote § on p. 199. 

f For this reason alone the heuristic method can never wholly replace other 
methods of education. Another— possibly even more serious — objection to the 
general application of the heuristic method is noticed below (on p. 224, footnote *). 

I See above, p. igg, footnote §. 



222 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 12. l 

possessed, at a certain stage of the development of his neurography, 
two quite separate systems of neurograms, each system having the 
form of a maximal endarchy. Let us, as before, represent these two 
endarchies by 5^^^ ^^ - fcp-i fcp ^^^ -^fci fcj ... fcp-i fc'p- On the first occasion 
upon which any element of ^^tifca-fcp ^^ fortuitously excited at the 
same time as any element of 5;^.^ ^.^ ... j^' , the excitement will tend to 
move towards the central elements, Ej^^jc^...jc and Ejc^^^..,j^' , of the 
respective systems*; and these elements will be more excited than 
any other elements in the systems. Curiosity-wonder will then, as we 
sawf, tend to connect Ej^^y.^,,,^ and Ej^^jci-k'p through some new 
element ■E'j;ifc2...fcp-i • Thus, as we shall see in greater detail shortly J, 
curiosity-wonder tends to build a maximal endarchy of neurograms. 

For these three reasons, then, every individual person's neuro- 
graphy tends, in part at least, to resemble the endarchy of science. We 
have next to observe that it is in the interests both of the individual 
concerned and of the community to which he belongs that his personal 
neurography should so tend. 

In the first place, close correspondence between an individual's 
personal neurography and the endarchy of science will ensure the 
vahdity of his reasoning. The endarchy of science fits experience. If 
therefore the neural path§ followed by the excitement during a train 
of reasoning corresponds to the endarchy of science, the conclusion 
reached will accord with the facts of experience. But, if there is no 
such correspondence between a reasoner's neurography and the 
endarchy of science, there can be no certainty that his reasoning will 
be valid II, although it is conceivable that true conclusions may 
occasionally be reached by such a thinker. 

A second reason why an individual's personal neurography should 
correspond as closely as possible to the endarchy of science, appears 
when we turn from individual to social psychology and consider the 
individual as a member of a community. It is only when a particular 
person's neurography resembles the incomplete^ endarchy of science 
as it then exists — only when it corresponds to the organised body of 
scientific thought as then generally accepted — that other people will 
follow his reasoning and accept his conclusions. Thus only will his 
thought help to build up the endarchy of science; thus only will his 

* This follows from the corollary to our third law. See also pp. 94 and 208. 
f See above, pp. 92, 93. 
X See below, pp. 247 et seq. 

§ This neural path when completed will consist of a chain of connected elements 
in the reasoner's neurography. 

II See above, p. 189. ^ See above, p. 199, footnote §. 



II. 12. 1 NEUROGRAPHIES 223 

experiments be those that are most needed in the then state of 
scientific enquiry ; and thus only will he be sure of avoiding unnecessary 
repetition of experiments, or of reasoning processes, that have already 
been adequately performed. (We note in this connexion the difficulties 
of a new science, when there is as yet no accepted subject endarchy, 
and when different investigators tend to start from different premises * ; 
so that, instead of gradually building up a single endarchy having 
its proper place in the complete endarchy of science, they create a 
number of similar separate subject endarchies, overlapping but not 
combining. We do well, however, to note also that a personal endarchy 
which does not, as regards some particular subject matter, correspond 
with the then accepted endarchy of science, may sometimes be nearer 
to the goal of scientific thought — may indeed correspond more closely 
with part of the complete endarchy of science as it will some day be 
known — than the incomplete science as it appears to its accepted 
professors.) 

Thirdly, an individual's neurography should resemble the endarchy 
of science as closely as possible in order that his reasoning may be 
economical or efficient, as well as valid and convincing. Or, at least, 
economy of effort f in the organisation of his thought demands that 
his neurography should form, as far as possible, a maximal endarchy 
(which, for valid reasoning, must resemble as closely as possible the 
endarchy of science). For we have already J seen that, under the 
conditions stated in paragraphs (a) and (b) §, a maximal endarchy is the 
organisation which yields the minimum average path — the minimum 
average number of intermediate elements — between any one element 
and any other. This therefore is the organisation of neurogram-elements 
which yields, on the average, the shortest trains of reasoning. We 
note in passing that, since it is desirable that his reasoning should be 
as ef&cient as possible — not only when the organisation of his thought 
has reached its most complete stage but also at earlier stages of his 
education, and that probably means throughout the greater part of 
his life — the effort expended upon his education will, from this point 
of view, be most effective if it is so ordered that his neurography has 
the form of a single maximal endarchy of neurograms throughout its 

* For example, a reasoned statement about some department of thought 
which has not yet been scientifically organised, or the scientific organisation of 
which has not yet been generally accepted, will fail to convince its readers because 
they have not previously accepted the premises from which the argument 
starts. 

f Cf. Mach's statement quoted by Poincare (loc. cit. p. 28) that 'the part of 
science is to effect economy of thought.' 

X See above, pp. 208 to 211. § On pp. 208 and 209 above. 



224 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 12. l 

development, instead of growing as several separate endarchies * that 
do not become connected until the process approaches completion. 

The fourth reason why the neurography of any person should, as 
far as possible, be organised in the form of a single maximal endarchy, 
is that the conditions of conflict cannot occur in a neurography so 
organised. For, when we were lately f discussing neural conditions of 
conflict, we observed that two potentially conflicting interest-systems, 
while they must meet in some common element, must each have its 
own separate endarchical organisation. This condition of conflict 
cannot be fulfilled in a single maximal endarchy. In a person whose 
neurography is organised as a single maximal endarchy, excitement 
always tends to move in the same direction, namely towards the 
centre of the endarchy J. 

When, later on §, we come to discuss the end of a train of reasoned 
thought, we shall find that end to consist as a rule in some kind of 
movement. We shall further observe that a person's conduct will 
only be consistent and effective if every train of thought has something 
in common II . This common property, which will leave its trace on all 
the individual's behaviour and will thus characterise him, would be 
furnished by a neurography in the form of a single maximal endarchy, 
into the centre of which the excitement that accompanies every train 
of thought would tend to drain ^f, and the excitement of whose central 
element or elements would therefore tend to accompany and affect 
every action. The more nearly a person's neurography is so organised 
that, whatever elements are first excited, the excitement tends to 
drain through the same group of central elements, the more likely is 
his conduct to prove consistent and effective. We have here then a 
fifth reason why every personal neurography should, as far as possible, 
resemble a single maximal endarchy. 

A sixth reason appears when we consider that a personal neuro- 
graphy in the form of a single maximal endarchy which gives the 

* See above, Chapter 1 1, § 5. Following Mr Kenneth Richmond (Education for 
Liberty, p. 202) we may note here that a person's neurography, if it is to be com- 
pletely inter-connected at every stage of its development, may have to grow 
differently from the endarchy of science. For the neurographic elements to be 
connected may be chosen with some freedom: some at least of the elements of 
a person's neurography are chosen by his educators, and it is conceivable that 
all might be so chosen. But the endarchy of science starts with given separate 
experiences that have to be gradually inter-connected. Here is another (see above, 
p. 221) reason why the heuristic method of education is not of universal applic- 
ability. 

f See above, p. 163. J See above, pp. 94, 163, 208. 

§ See below. Chapter 15. || See pp. 282, 283 below. 

Tl In accordance with the corollary (p. 89) to our third law. Cf. pp. 94, 208 
above. 



11. 12. 1 NEUROGRAPHIES 225 

shortest average path from any one neurogram to any other, for that 
very reason also results in the greatest average freedom of action in 
any given circumstances. For the only voluntary actions possible at 
any given moment are those whose images* are then within the field 
of consciousness; and the organisation of neurograms which results 
in the shortest average path from any one neurogram to any other 
is also, other things being equal, the organisation which reduces to 
a minimum the resistance of the average path from one neurogram 
to another. In particular, it minimises the resistance of the path from 
the system of neurograms excited at any moment to the neurogram 
whose excitement brings an idea of a particular possible course of 
action into the field of consciousness. Whoever therefore develops 
a personal neurography in the form of a single maximal endarchy, 
will, other things being equal, have the greatest possible freedom of 
action from moment to moment: he will possess the fullest oppor- 
tunity to choose his own course in life, and to achieve whatever 
purposes he may have formed. But other things will not be equal in 
the case of two men who both possess such an endarchy of neurograms, 
but the endarchy of one of whom includes all, or nearly all, the 
neurograms likely to be excited by the experiences of his life, while 
most of the neurograms of the other man's endarchy are remote from 
his future experiences. Hence the importance in education of securing 
that the principal interests of the pupil's life, in so far as they can 
be foreseen, form an integral part of the endarchy which his education 
should aim at developing. 

A seventh reason why every personal neurography should consist 
of such a single maximal endarchy deserves special notice. Whoever 
has his thought so organised will tend to have more nervous energy 
available for all his thought; for, whatever may be the group of his 
neurograms that is excited during a particular train of thought, the 
excitement will tend to spread inwards towards the deepest central 
elements of his neurography!. The number of neurogram-elements 
thus rendered active will, on the average, be far greater than would 
have been the case had the group of neurograms originally excited 
been confined to a small separate interest-system. The increase in the 
average available excitement which therefore results from possession 
of a single wide interest-system — a single endarchy of neurograms — 
must result in an increased power to reinforce excitement, since, as 
we said above J, the excitement added by the Will so as to guide 



* See above, pp. 38, 69. j See above, pp. 94, 163, 208. 

I On p. 130. 



15 



226 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 12. i 

thought is probably part of the available excitement at the moment. 
We notice here a link with Dr Hart's and Professor Spearman's* 
view, that the general factor, '^, 'consists of a common fund of energy f. 

We have now considered three reasons why every personal 
neurography does in fact tend to assume the form of a single maximal 
endarchy corresponding to the endarchy of science; and seven other 
reasons why it is in the interests both of the individual and of the 
community to which he belongs that his neurography should develop 
along these lines. Reversing our argument, we observe that the 
endarchy of science itself may perhaps owe its form to the fact that 
it is gradually built up by the efforts of individual thinkers and 
observers, each of whom has tended to develop a single maximal 
endarchy. He has done so in part involuntarily, because of the 
manner in which his instinct of curiosity operates; and in part 
voluntarily, not only because he is thus able to organise his thought 
in a single connected system with a minimum of effort, but also 
because he thus avoids conflicts, increases the effectiveness of his 
conduct, secures greater freedom of action, and, by securing a larger 
average supply of available excitement, increases the effect of every 
effort of his WiU. 

§ 2. Individual Neurographies and the Endarchy of Science. 

Returning to the argument interrupted by the last paragraph, 
we observe that, while every person's neurography tends and should 
tend to form a single maximal endarchy which corresponds as closely 
as possible to part of the endarchy of science, no person's neurography 
can be organised as a whole to form a single maximal endarchy, and 
no maximal endarchy that forms part of a person's neurography can be 
so extensive as to correspond, element for element, with the complete 
endarchy of science |. Even if, at any moment, some individual had 
organised the whole of his neurography in the form of a maximal 
endarchy, afferent nervous impulses, stimulated by the events of his 
environment, would produce new neurograms and modify old ones 
faster than he could reorganise his endarchy to include the new or 

* See above, p. ii8. 

t Miss M. D. Waller has shewn that, among certain women students, those 
whose examinational ability is highest, and who, we may therefore be sure, 
possess the highest ' g,' also exhibit the largest relative responses to sudden sensory 
and emotional stimuli: a result which suggests that they also possess on the 
average the most available excitement at any given moment. (Lancet, 29th March, 
1918.) X Cf. above, p. 221. 



II. 12. 2 NEUROGRAPHIES 227 

altered elements, each in its proper place*. There are indeed whole 
regions in the endarchy of science, no essences of which are represented 
in the ordinary man's neurography, regions that correspond to subjects 
of which he is completely ignorant. And, in regions of the endarchy 
of science where his neurography does overlap it and correspond to 
some of its essences, there will be other essences in the complete 
endarchy that have not been analysed out, so as to have separate 
elements corresponding to them in his neurography. 

So we have to recognise that, however great may be the effort 
which any individual and his teachers spend upon the organisation 
of his thought, the volume of his everyday experience will necessarily 
be so great that it cannot all be organised in a maximal endarchy, or 
made to correspond, element for element, with the endarchy of science. 
A selection must therefore be made by every individual and by his 
teachers. They have to choose experiences to be added voluntarily 
to those which arrive involuntarily; and their choice may determine 
not only what lessons he shall learn, but also what physical exercises 
he shall practise, and, in general, how he shall behave. They have 
also to decide how the effort available for organising his neurography 
shall be apportioned among his neurograms, whether formed volun- 
tarily or involuntarily. 

We may take it that the person whose neurography we are con- 
sidering is no Robinson Crusoe living in isolation from his fellows, but 
one among many other members of a community. He will have his 
own particular functions to perform in the life of the society to which 
he belongs. His special activities, social as well as vocational, will 
bring him specific experiences that are not shared by all his fellow- 
men. If he is to live his life and to do his work effectively, it is 
important, alike in the interests of himself and of his neighbours, 
that he should be able to reason accurately and convincingly, as well 
as to act effectively, in the matters with which he is every day most 
concerned. That those of his neurograms which correspond to these 
matters should form a single maximal endarchy, resembling the 
endarchy of science as nearly as possible, is therefore more important 
than that most of the other elements of his neurography should be 
so organised. These other elements correspond to multifarious and 
comparatively fortuitous experiences of daily life that have little 
connexion with the work in which he serves his fellows, and by which 
he hopes, perhaps, to be remembered. About these comparatively 
fortuitous experiences he will not need to think often or intensely, 

* Cf. above, p. 194. 

15—2 



228 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 12. 2 

and the corresponding neurograms may be comparatively shallow. 
It is the deeper neurograms that correspond to his principal activities 
that most need to be scientifically organised in a maximal endarchy, 
corresponding as closely as possible with the endarchy of science * . 

Now it is true that a perfect maximal endarchy is unlikely to be 
found, even in the most scientifically organised portion of the neuro- 
graphy of the most philosophic of men. But, since we have seen that 
neurographies tend and should tend to form maximal endarchies, we 
can simplify our description of individual neurographies by referring 
them to an imaginary standard — the neurography of some imaginary 
philosopher — whose deeper neurograms, corresponding to that part 
of the world of experience with which his thoughts and actions are 
principally concerned, do actually form a maximal endarchy that 
corresponds as closely as possible with part of the endarchy of science. 
Observe, however, that the maximal endarchy, which forms part of 
the neurography of our imaginary philosopher, will be replaced in 
some more real and familiar person, whom we may call 'Jones,' by 
an endarchical organisation, which constitutes the most scientifically 
organised portion of his neurography and corresponds as closely as 
possible! with part of the endarchy of science, but which only 
approximately satisfies the conditions for a maximal endarchy. To 
this endarchical organisation that may not be, although it tends to 
be, a maximal endarchy, we shall refer as Jones' scientifically 
organised endarchy, or, more briefly, his ' scientific endarchy.' But, 
for the reasons that we have just been studying, the host of other 
neurograms, records of his experience, that are not organised as part 
of his scientific endarchy, do, nevertheless, tend, and should tend, to 
be connected with it so as to form a single system. We have to 
investigate the nature of the connexion in question. 

The systems of nervous arcs that are excited by the fortuitous 
experiences of every day correspond to essences (or fact-elements J) 
and groups of essences § distributed over many different branch (| 
endarchies in the endarchy of science; or, as we said before^, the 

* Cf. above, p. 226. f See below, p. 237. 

J See above, p. 195. In the next few pages we shall refer to these fact- 
elements by their more general name of 'essences' so as to avoid confusion with 
the (neurogram-) elements that correspond to them in the neurography of the 
imaginary omniscient being referred to above on pp. 199 (footnote f) and 208. 

§ These groups of essences never will be complete facts as we have defined 
them; for Jones' neurograms that are excited as he experiences a fact, or as he 
thinks of it, or as an idea of it appears in his field of consciousness, will not include 
elements that correspond to all the essences belonging to the fact in the complete 
endarchy of science. 

II See above, p. 208. ^ On p. 193. See also pp. 191 and 197. 



II. 12. 2 NEUROGRAPHIES 229 

neurograms of ' concrete ' experiences are apt to be complex and ill- 
defined. Among all these essences there may be some that are repre- 
sented in Jones' scientific endarchy, and this will more likely be the 
case the more extensive that scientific endarchy is. But the various 
neural elements whose excitement accompanies a single experience — 
or a number of simultaneous experiences — are, according to our third 
law*, empirically connected. Every experience, therefore, that is 
accompanied by the excitement of elements in Jones' scientific 
endarchy of neurograms as well as of other elements outside it, will 
result in the empirical connexion of elements that are organised as 
part of his scientific endarchy to other elements of his neurography 
that are not so organised. So we recognise two kinds of connexion 
between an individual's neurograms. The first corresponds to a 
rational (or voluntary) connexion of essence to essence, the second 
to an unreasoning, empirical (or involuntary) connexion of the whole 
to the whole f. When the connexion is of the first kind, Jones can 
follow, essence by essence, every link (or step) that connects, one 
experience! to the other. But when the connexion is of the second 
type, he is no longer able to split it into separate essences which might 
also form part of connexions between other experiences. In short, the 
several essences that make up the first, or rational, kind of connexion, 
being usable in many other connexions also (to connect other experi- 
ences), are more general than the connecting links of the second kind 
which connect two particular facts only; and, being essences, they 
are necessarily also more simple. So we recognise again § that these 
last essences, to which Jones' scientific endarchy corresponds, are more 
simple and more general than those to which correspond the neuro- 
grams that form the remainder, or unscientifically organised portion, 
of his neurography. 

We spoke, a moment ago, of a fact of Jones' personal experience 
— a fact that had not been analysed, abstracted, and fitted in to his 
scientific endarchy — as including many essences belonging to widely 
different branches of the endarchy of science. But different properties 

* See above, p. 79. 

f Thus William James insists 'that every possible case of reasoning involves 
the extraction of a particular partial aspect of the phenomena thought about, 
and that whilst Empirical Thought simply associates phenomena in their entirety, 
Reasoned Thought couples them by the conscious use of this extract.' {Loc. cit. 
Vol. II, p. 341.) 

% The experience in question is, as explained in footnote § on p. 228, something 
less than a complete fact as we have defined it. It is made up of those essences only 
to which correspond neurogram-elements that are excited when Jones receives 
the experience in question. 

§ Cf. above, p. 199. 



230 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 12. 2 

of the same thing, different parts of the same fact — the look of a 
piece of cloth, for example, and the permanence of its dye* — each 
have essences which are connected in the complete endarchy of science. 
Accordingly, any two empirically connected neurograms in Jones' 
neurography partially correspond to facts, or correspond to parts of 
facts, which are connected by having some essence in common in the 
complete endarchy of science. Neurographic correlatives of these 
connexions through common essences are not, however, to be found 
complete — but more or less short-circuited — in the unscientific or 
disorganised portion of the neurography of any person to whom they 
appear empirical. 

These short-circuits, the nature of which we shall shortly examine 
and illustrate by a diagram f, may connect multitudes of neurograms 
in the unscientific part of a person's neurography to one or more 
elements in the scientific part. It is the deepest elements of Jones' 
scientific endarchy J which are most often excited, and which, there- 
fore, are most likely to be connected with elements belonging to the 
unscientific or unorganised part of his neurography. The most central 
elements of his scientific endarchy will, therefore, tend to have the 
largest number of connexions with elements outside it. Moreover, 
since closeness of two fact-elements in the endarchy of science marks 
a tendency to occur together in the world of experience, groups of 
essences that are very far removed from each other in the endarchy 
of science are not likely to be experienced together. Neurograms 
corresponding to these experiences are therefore unlikely to be 
empirically connected in Jones' neurography. It follows that ele- 
ments, and especially the outermost or lowest elements in his scientific 
endarchy, are not likely to be connected empirically with very distant 
elements (i.e. elements that correspond to very distant essences in the 
endarchy of science) in the unscientific part of his neurography. If, 
however, such distant elements are to be connected to his scientific 
endarchy, that connexion is most likely to be made empirically through 
the endarchy 's most central elements. Indeed, we shall see later § 
that the central elements of anybody's scientific endarchy are likely 

* This illustration is borrowed from W. James : ' Suppose I say, when offered 
a piece of cloth, "I won't buy that; it looks as if it would fade," meaning merely 
that something about it suggests the idea of fading to my mind, — my judgment, 
though possibly correct, is not reasoned, but purely empirical; but, if I can say 
that into the color there enters a certain dye which I know to be chemically 
unstable, and that therefore the color will fade, my judgment is reasoned. The 
notion of the dye which is one of the parts of the cloth, is the connecting link 
between the latter and the notion of fading.' (Loc. cit. Vol. ii, p. 340.) 

f See below. Fig. 17 on p. 235. J See above, p. 228. 

§ See below, p, 238. 



II. 12. 2 NEUROGRAPHIES 231 

to be closely connected with emotion-elements, or even to consist 
largely of emotion-elements. So there is available a path of connexion 
between these central elements and the ' unscientific ' or unorganised 
elements of the neurography: it is only necessary to connect these 
latter elements with certain emotion-elements and they are ipso facto 
connected to the central elements of the personal endarchy. Moreover, 
the more permanent among these outside elements, not being fre- 
quently used and deepened by rational thinking, are likely to be 
already rich in emotion-elements; for otherwise they would rapidly 
become disintegrated and disappear. 

If Fig. 16 on p. 204 were used to represent Jones' scientific endarchy 
of neurograms, the neural arcs, connecting an element of this endarchy 
with the unscientific or unorganised portion of his neurography so as 
to form a single whole, might be represented by fine lines streaming 
out like tassels from the various elements of the scientific endarchy. 
Of these tassels, the largest would be those that came from the most 
central elements*. 

Since, moreover, the whole neurography cannot be organised as a 
single maximal endarchy f, it should, for the last five of the seven 
reasons given above on pp. 222 to 225, be the object of every indi- 
vidual's educators, and of himself as chief among them, thus to connect 
the unscientific part of his neurography as completely as possible with 
a central scientific endarchy (which, as we said J, corresponds as closely 
as possible with part of the endarchy of science). 

When the whole neurography is thus connected together into a 
single system, we may speak of it all as forming a personal endarchy § 
of neurograms. It is in this sense that the words ' personal endarchy,' 
whether of neurograms or essences ||, will in future be used. And, 
since it is through the scientific endarchy that the whole neurography 
is then connected, we may speak of the scientific endarchy as central, 
and of the empirically connected portion of the neurography as 
peripheral. 

The personal endarchy, developed by connecting together the 
whole neurography through a central scientific endarchy, must be 
distinguished from the scientific endarchy which forms its central 
portion. While the scientific endarchy corresponds as closely as 
possible with (part of) the endarchy of science, there are large badly 

* For the reasons given in the preceding paragraph. See also pp. 24^, 243, 
below. 

f See above, p. 226. % On p. 228 above. 

§ Cf. the definition of an endarchy on p. 163 above. 
II See above, p. 196. 



232 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 12. 2 

organised regions in the personal endarchy where correspondence with 
the endarchy of science is very shght. Again, while the scientific 
endarchy approximates to, and in the case of our imaginary philoso- 
pher* actually is, a maximal endarchy t, we have just remarked that 
the personal endarchy can never be a maximal endarchy. 

§ 3. Personal Endarchies. 

Let us now suppose that every member of a certain community 
or Commonwealth has been so educated that his neurography forms 
a personal endarchy of neurograms. We then observe that the 
personal endarchies of different individuals will generally differ. For 
the different offices filled by different members of the same society 
will demand, as we have seen|, that the scientific endarchy of each 
should be correspondingly different. The scientific endarchies of the 
different individuals will thus correspond to different portions of the 
endarchy of science, according to those individuals' different activities 
in the life of the community. For example, the endarchies of skilled 
manual workers will include a large number of elements that corre- 
spond to outer zone essences in the endarchy of science, elements 
whose excitement accompanies immediate practical experience. The 
personal endarchies of abstract thinkers, on the other hand, will 
include a much larger proportion of elements that correspond to 
inner essences in the endarchy of science. The endarchies of experts 
in particular branches of experimental science will include elements 
corresponding to all the essences that have so far been discovered in 
certain branch endarchies § or parts of branch endarchies. And the 
personal endarchies of philosophers or theologians will include elements 
corresponding to as many as possible of the central essences of the 
endarchy of science, essences that belong to the facts of many different 
branches of science ||. 

* See above, p. 228. 

t It is however true that, when any neurogram in the unscientific portion 
of the personal endarchy is connected to two or more elements of the scientific 
part, those two or more elements may be empirically connected through the 
unscientific portion of the neurography, as well as through higher or inner elements 
of the scientific endarchy. But this will not generally interfere with the use of 
the scientific part of a personal endarchy for reasoning purposes, seeing that the 
empirical connexions between elements of the scientific endarchy and elements 
outside it, being used only on special occasions instead of being simple and general 
paths of connexion, will not be so deep (or, therefore, so likely to be used in thinking) 
as the main line connexions in the scientific endarchy. 

% See above, pp. 227, 228. 

§ See above, p. 208. 

II Cf. above, p. 216. 



II. 12, 3 NEUROGRAPHIES 233 

But, however large may be the proportion of 'abstract' elements* 
in the personal endarchy of any individual, every one of those 
abstract elements should have one or more outer zone elements in 
his endarchy derived from it ; or, in other words, simple abstract facts 
should not be studied out of all relation to concrete facts of which 
they form part. For example, children learning geography ought to 
have seen at least one river before being taught how rivers are formed 
or learning lists of rivers in any geographical region f. Abstract 
elements that are not thus supported by elements corresponding to 
boundarj' essences J of facts of direct experience are likely to prove 
misleading and are certain to lack value §. 

Let us now look more closely at the nature of the correspondence 
between the endarchy of science and the scientific endarchies — the 
scientific parts of the personal endarchies — of different members of 
our hypothetical community. While the personal endarchy of any 
individual will altogether lack elements to correspond to many of 
the essences in the endarchy of science, and while a single eleinent in 
a personal endarchy will often correspond to many separate essences 
in the endarchy of science — essences which the person in question has 
never distinguished — yet one, and only one, element in his scientific 
endarchy must correspond to a single essence (or to a single system 
of connected essences) in the endarchy of science. And if an element, 
E', in the scientific endarchy of any person corresponds to an essence 
(or to a single system of connected essences), E, in the endarchy of 
science, then all the elements to which E' is connected in that person's 
scientific endarchy must correspond to essences that are connected 
with E in the endarchy of science. In short, it we know that an 
element, E\ of a scientific endarchy corresponds to an essence, E, in 
the endarchy of science, then we know that E' does not correspond to 
any essence in the endarchy of science instead of E, though E' may 
correspond to many essences in addition to\\ E. 

We have already seen that, when a particular object — and we 
may now add a particular fact — is thought of on different occasions, 
the thought-activities, or ideas of it, are different^. Different there- 
fore in some particular must be the system of neurograms excited; 
or, if exactly the same system is excited on more than one occasion, 

* I.e. elements whose excitement accompanies thought of abstract facts (see 
p. 214 above). f See also below, p. 343. 

I See above, p. 214. § See above, footnote f on p. 206. 

II Cf. W. James, loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 461. We have here written E' instead of 
E so as to mark the possible imperfection of the correspondence between E' and E. 
See above, p. 208. H See above, pp. 46, 47. 



234 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 12. 3 

the relative excitement of different parts of it must differ. It is, 
however, necessary for rational thinking that different thoughts of 
the same object should be, to some extent, the same. 'This sense of 
sameness,' says W. James*, 'is the very keel and backbone of our 
thinking.' Thus something of the same belongs to every different 
thought of the same thing or of the same fact. It follows that Jones' 
every thought of the same fact. A, is accompanied by the excitement of 
the same neurogram or system of neurograms, although his different 
thoughts of A are accompanied by the excitement of different sub- 
sidiary {j)ro hac vice) groups of neurograms giving partially different 
meanings to the different thoughts. Accordingly, when A is thought 
of, other neurograms may be excited in addition to A', but not instead 
of A'. Whenever A is thought of, A' must be excited, but not 
necessarily equally in every part. 

But A' may contain many elements that correspond to, or form 
part of, neurographic systems that correspond to facts other than A. 
In reasoning about any fact, say A, it is necessary, as we have seenf, 
to concentrate attention upon some particular aspect or essence of 
that fact ; and therefore to concentrate excitement in some particular 
element, or group of elements, that form part of ^'. The element or 
group of elements, which we select for this purpose, depends upon the 
purpose for which the reasoning in question is undertaken. Sometimes 
one element of A' and sometimes another will therefore be selected 
instead of A' . Or, in other words, A has no single essence, E, and A' 
has no single essential element, E' . The essence selected for any par- 
ticular purpose in rational thinking is chosen on purely teleological 
grounds % . 

Now let us consider in more detail how the personal endarchy of 
some particular person — Jones, say — corresponds to the endarchy of 
science. Let us begin by considering that portion of Jones' scientific 
endarchy which corresponds (as closely as possible §) to some particular 
branch of science, Sj.^^.^...^ . We are thus to consider (the neural 
correlatives of) Jones' ideas on the subject '^jcik^-'-kp- Let us, for 
simphcity, omit the suffixes k^yk^, .... k^, and represent the branch 
endarchy, S, by line-elements e (which is equivalent to ej^^j^^.^jcp); 
€i, 62, ...; e^, ei2, ...; e2i. ^22' ••■> ••■' and so on||. 

* Loc. cit. Vol. I, p. 459. 

t Above, pp. i86 and 193. We have also seen (on pp. 214, 215 above) how 
facts and even simple facts overlap, possessing essences in common. 

X Cf. W. James, loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 335, quoted on p. 238 below. 

§ See above, p. 228. 

II The line-elements in the diagram that correspond to fact-elements in S or 
to neurogram-elements in S (or 5'), are denoted by Greek letters. 



ir. 12. 3 



NEUROGRAPHIES 



235 



Now Jones will not know the subject, S, in its entirety. Jones' 
subject endarchy, S', will not therefore contain elements to correspond 
to all the essences of the complete branch endarchy, S. Let us suppose 
that it contains only those elements (that correspond to the line- 
elempnts) enclosed by the broken line* in Fig. 17. 

We note in passing that Brown's ideas on S will generally differ f 
from those of Jones. Brown's ideas about S accompany the excite- 
ment of portions of Brown's subject endarchy, S"; and S" will com- 
monly differ from S' even as both differ from S, the system of an 




Fig. 17. Diagram representing the branch endarchy S. 

* If we are asked why we have chosen to include in the broken Une a group 
of more or less adjacent elements from the middle of the diagram, rather than 
several separate groups, distributed at random throughout the diagram, we reply 
that every personal endarchy tends, other things being equal, to include elements 
corresponding to essences that are near together in the endarchy of science, rather 
than elements corresponding to those that are far apart in that endarchy. Or 
more precisely, if a personal endarchy includes an element corresponding to a 
particular essence of the endarchy of science, the chance that it will include 
a neurogram-element to correspond to a second specified essence in the endarchy 
of science is, in general, greater the nearer that second essence is to the first in 
the endarchy of science. The reason, of course, is that the very habit of mutual 
concomitance which causes two fact-elements or essences to be near neighbours 
in the endarchy of science, will also tend to cause the experience of a particular 
person, Jones, to include both essences if it includes one of them. 

t Cf. above, p. 227. 



236 



THE AIM OF EDUCATION 



II. 12. 3 



omniscient being's* neurograms that perfectly correspond to S. 
S" may be represented in Fig. 17 by the elements enclosed by the 
dotted line. 

In Fig. 17, S21, the branch endarchy derived from Egi, is con- 
nected with Sj by the essences E and Eg which are not represented by 
neurogram-elements in Jones' subject endarchy, S'. Thus Jones' 
imperfect subject endarchies, S'21 and S\, may be quite separate as 
in that part of Fig. 17 which is enclosed by the broken line. But if 
any element of either S\ or S'^i is excited in Jones' brain at the same 
time as any element of the other, the excitement will spread towards 




Fig. 18. Diagram representing Jones' endarchy S' that imperfectly 
corresponds to S. 

the two central elements, namely E\ or E'21, of the respective end- 
archies; and, as we have saidf, the excitement in 5'^ will attain its 
maximum in the element E\, while the excitement in S'21 will be 
greatest in the element £'21- We have then the appropriate stimulus 
of curiosity-wonder: two elements, E\ and E'^i, both corresponding 
to (particular aspects of) simple and familiar facts, and both excited 
together for the first time J. The result will be the connexion of E\ 
and £'21 • Thereafter S' will be the single endarchy (that corresponds 
to the line-elements) represented § in Fig. 18. 

* See above, p. 208. f See above, p. 222. J See above, pp. 92 and 222. 

§ For all that we have said in the text, £'21 instead of E'l might have been 
placed at the summit of the endarchy in Fig. 18, in which case E\, £'211 and E'^is 
would have been three elements derived in the first degree from £'21 • But E\ 
having more elements derived from it in Jones' neurography than are derived 
from £'21 will be deeper than £'21," and when the two become connected will 
therefore, as we shall see directly, be more central than (or above) £'21 in the 
combined endarchy. 



II. 12. 3 NEUROGRAPHIES 237 

We observe that the result of the simultaneous excitement of any 
two elements in the two separate endarchies, S\ and 5'«i, is to short- 
circuit the true (endarchy of science) path — EaiEgEEj — from E21 to 
El. What disadvantage does Jones suffer by reason of this short- 
circuit in his personal endarchy? 

If we regard knowledge as good, useful, or desirable 'for its own 
sake,' we have our answer at once : Jones suffers because his knowledge 
is inaccurate or, in other words, because his neurography does not 
accurately correspond to the endarchy of science. But if we are not 
content to say that accurate knowledge is to be desired ' for its own 
sake,' we shall still find that Jones is placed at a disadvantage by 
reason of the short-circuit between E\ and £'21 . In the first place, his 
arguments will go wrong: he will wrongly suppose, for example, that 
all that is common to the simple facts*, T^ and T12, is also common 
to T21. Secondly, if he were suddenly confronted with E2, a {to him) 
new essence abstracted from T21, he would have no place for it in 
his endarchy. Conflict might result in his mind, as in the minds of 
the chemists of some seventeen years ago to whom physicists presented 
the new fact of the structure and divisibility of the atom. Moreover, 
such a short-circuit will tend to make Jones misunderstand Brown 
when they discuss matters of common interest, matters such as S21 
(E21, E211, E212) which form part of the interests of both. When Jones 
thinks of any fact pertaining to this subject he tends to think at once 
of El as its (principal) essence f; but when Brown thinks of the same 
fact, its (principal) essence is for him E2. 

§ 4. The Central Elements in Personal Endarchies. 

Finally, what are the central deepest elements in Jones' scientific 
endarchy, and therefore in his personal endarchy as a whole? When 
we were lately discussing the endarchy of science, we imagined | an 
omniscient being with a human brain, knowing all the facts in the 
complete endarchy of science. We pointed out that the deepest 
demerits in such a being's neurography would correspond to the 
central elements in the endarchy of science, for they would be most 
frequently traversed by excitement as his attention moved from one 
outer zone fact-element to another. But the neurography of ordinary 
human beings is by no means wholly the result of the exercise of 
reasoned thought. We are to discuss in a moment § how personal 

* See above, p. 207. 

f I.e. the most central of its essences that is represented in his endarchy. 

I E.g. on p. 208 above. § See below, Chapters 13 and 14. 



238 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 12. 4 

endarchies of neurograms are gradually built up. But we may remind 
ourselves here that the depths of particular neurograms, say in Jones' 
neurography, depend, not only on the frequency with which those 
neurograms have been excited, but also on the intensity of the ex- 
citement on each occasion. And we have further seen that neuro- 
graphic elements which are closely linked to affective-conative 
elements are on that account likely to be especially deep. We have* 
gone further, and observed that those elements which belong to the 
future-interest-system, and to purpose-neurograms in particular, are 
likely to have most influence of all upon the passage of excitement 
through the neurography. Since therefore we are supposing f that 
Jones possesses a neurography of the kind that we have described as 
a personal endarchy, the central portion in the endarchy must be 
occupied by purpose-elements X . As William James said, the classifica- 
tion of experience, and, we may add, its record in the form of personal 
endarchies of neurograms, are 'purely teleological weapons of the 
mind.'§ Our various personal endarchies characterise us more than 
they characterise the real world. Different individuals are indeed 
characterised by very different personal endarchies ||. 

Now we have considered^ seven reasons why Jones' neurography 
should tend to correspond to the endarchy of science. We have seen, 
too, that the correspondence cannot be complete** and that it should 
be most marked in his central scientific endarchy where it should be 
as close as possible jf. But if Jones is to know as much as possible of 

* On p. 153 above; and Appendix B, §§ ii and 12. f See above, p. 234. 

{ So, if Kepler was right (see footnote || on p. 196 above) in saying that he 
thought God's thoughts after Him, purpose-elements form the central elements 
of God's universe and therefore of the endarchy of science. 

§ W. James, loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 335. He adds: 'The essence of a thing is that 
one of its properties which is so important for my interests that in comparison 
with it I may neglect the rest.' Cf. also p. 334: 'Men are so ingrainedly partial 
that, for common-sense and scholasticism (which is only common-sense grown 
articulate), the notion that there is no one quality genuinely, absolutely, and 
exclusively essential to anything is almost unthinkable. " A thing's essence makes 
it what it is. Without an exclusive essence it would be nothing in particular, 
would be quite nameless, we could not say it was this rather than that. What 
you write on, for example, — why talk of its being combustible, rectangular, and 
the like, when you know that these are mere accidents, and that what it really 
is, and was made to be, is just paper and nothing else? " The reader is pretty sure 
to make some such comment as this. But he is himself merely insisting on an 
aspect of the thing which suits his own petty purpose, that of naming the thing; 
or else on an aspect which suits the manufacturer's purpose, that of producing an 
article for which there is a vulgar demand. Meanwhile the reality overflows these 
purposes at every pore. Our usual purpose with it, our commonest title for it, 
and the properties which this title suggests, have in reality nothing sacramental. 
They characterise us more than they characterise the thing ' 

II Cf. above, pp. 227 and 235. ^ See above, pp. 222 to 225. 

** See above, pp. 221, 226. ft See above, pp. 228, 231. 



II. 12. 4 NEUROGRAPHIES 239 

any part of the endarchy of science, and if E;;.^^.^...^^ is an essence 
belonging to that part, then — since E;^^...;. never occurs in the world 
of experience without the inner zone essences*, ^kik.^--kp^i> •••> ^kikf 
Ej.^, E, from which it is ' derived 'f — Jones must know as many of 
these essences as have been discovered; or, in other words, he must 
have neurogram-elements corresponding to them. Moreover, each of 
these more central essences that with E;i.^...j. make up the simple 
fact J, Tjc^.,.j., occurs more frequently in the world of experience 
than any essence derived from it; and it always accompanies any 
essence derived from it. Each of the more central essences must 
therefore occur more frequently than their derived essences, including 
^ki — kp> in Jones' personal experience in so far as it is involuntary. 
(But we have already § observed that, for the purposes of reasoning, 
he may voluntarily restrict the excitement to his neurograms of some 
particular essences only. The consequences of such restriction upon 
the organisation of the central elements of his neurography are 
examined below ||.) It follows that the elements of Jones' neurography 
that correspond to as many of the essences E, E^^ , E^^.^ j^^, ..., E}^^ ... ;;. , 
^ki-kp 3^s have been discovered, tend to be in descending order of 
depth, except in so far as his voluntary thinking modifies this order. 
Each of these elements tends therefore to be more central in Jones' 
personal endarchy than its successor in the series. Now we have just 
seen^ that the more central an element, Ej^, is in Jones' personal 
endarchy, the more likely it is to become empirically connected with 
other elements that correspond to essences which are closely connected 
with Ej. in the endarchy of science. It follows that the central elements 
of Jones' neurography, and therefore of his scientific endarchy, will 
tend to include elements that correspond, not only to E, E/^i. ^kik2> •••» 
but also to their neighbours in the endarchy of science. Accordingly, 
given that Jones possesses a scientific endarchy**, it follows that the 
central elements of his personal endarchy tend to correspond to the 
most central essences of the endarchy of science. 

But if, as we said a moment ago jf , the central elements of different 
personal endarchies correspond to the different purposes of the several 
persons in question, how can they also correspond to the same central 
essences in the complete endarchy of science? This difficulty is, from 
one point of view, unreal, since the central essences of the complete 

* See above, p. igg. f See above, p. 203. 

X See above, p. 203. § See above, pp. 186, 187. 

II See p. 242. ^ On p. 230 above. 

** As we saw on p. 228 above, a scientific endarchy corresponds as closely as 
possible with part of the endarchy of science. ff On p. 238 above. 



240 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 12. 4 

endarchy of science are as yet by no means completely discovered. 
So far then as reasoned thought is concerned, we need not hurry to 
find a way out. But, when conduct is in question, an adequate 
solution of this problem is urgently to be desired. 

We have not far to look for a solution. Thus Mr Fluegel, after 
pointing out that conscious control affords the ideal solution of all 
conflicts*, argues that the exact nature of the conscious processes 
whereby particular desires or tendencies are brought into relation 
with the other dominant tendencies of the personality, 'consists, at 
any rate to some extent, in the logical process of subsuming the end 
or goal of each tendency under some higher end or goal.'j In other 
words, conflicts are best avoided by consciously building up an 
endarchy of purposes wherein every element (except the central one) 
is ' subsumed ' under some higher or more central element. Mr Fluegel 
adds; 

As a result of this process the mind is able to see clearly the manner in 
which the particular desires and tendencies in question are related to the 
other interests of the personality, and these other interests are in turn 
brought to play upon the particular desires, in a way which is otherwise 
impossible. It is obvious that in such a case the process cannot logically 
come to an end at this point and that these higher ends must often be 
themselves called into question and decisions made between them. This 
involves the subsumption under still higher ends until we come at last to 
some conception of the highest good of all, the summum boniim. Theoretically 
perfect conduct on this principle would thus consist in a completely 
harmonious series of means to ends, aU duly subordinated to the highest 
end of which the mind in question could conceive. It would in fact be 
conduct such as would be generally recognised by teleological systems of 
Ethics as both intellectually and morally the most desirable. 

Now we have not hesitated, at an earlier stage| of our enquiry, to 
consider what kind of neurography is good for the individual and for 
the community, as well as what kind of neurography does in fact 
tend to be formed. If we have regard to similar considerations here, 
we see at once that it is in the interest of a community that the 
purposes of its members should be in" harmony one with another; or, 
in other words, that their various ideas of the summum honum should 
have much in common. We have now therefore no longer to discover 
how the central elements in various different personal endarchies may 
correspond to different purposes, and yet at the same time correspond 
to the same central essences in the endarchy of science. Our problem 
is much simplified; for we have only to determine how central 

* Cf. p. 175 above. f B.J.P, Vol. viii (iQi?). P- 49°. 

J E.g. on p. 227 above. 



II. 12. 4 NEUROGRAPHIES 241 

elements, belonging to different personal endarchies, but corresponding 
to the same summum bonum, may also correspond to the same central 
essences in the endarchy of science. A solution of this remaining 
problem is readily available in the Christian conception of God, Who 
is both the highest good*, and in Whom all things consist, even as all 
the facts in the endarchy of science are ultimately joined together 
by the single central essence f. 

We take it then that the central elements of the personal 
endarchies of all the members of the ideal Commonwealth J we are 
considering, will have in common certain purpose-elements that 
correspond to the central essences of the endarchy of science. This 
means that any particular member, Jones, of this society will have, 
among the central elements of his personal endarchy, elements E' , 
E\, E'2, ..., which correspond to the central essences E, Ej, Eg, ..., 
in the complete endarchy of science. But in view of his particular 
activities, social as well as vocational §, in the life of the community, 
his scientific endarchy should also correspond as closely as possible 
with some particular part, or 'subject endarchy,' of the endarchy of 
science ||. Suppose that ^jcijc^.-.jcp is the most central element of this 
subject endarchy. If, for example, Jones is expert in some particular 
branch of natural science, his scientific endarchy will closely correspond, 
not only to the central essences of the complete endarchy of science, 
but also to some particular branch endarchy, Sjc^j.„...}c^, or at least to 
its most central essence, E;tiA;2 — v ^^^ i^^ near derivatives^. So, in 
general, the central essences of Jones' scientific endarchy will include, 
not only E', E\, E'2, that correspond to the central essences of the 
complete endarchy of science, but also the element E\^j^^...y. and its 

* Because to know Him is, from the Christian point of view, the highest 
end or goal or purpose of human Ufa : ' This is hfe eternal ' — the attainment of which 
may well be the most immediately desirable end or goal of every human being — 
'that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou 
hast sent.' (John xvii. 3.) 

•[• We might borrow a simile from Professor Alexander's recent Gifford 
lectures, and regard the central essences of the endarchy of science as representing 
the brain of a being the whole of whose body was represented by the endarchy 
as a whole, and that is by the whole universe as science hopes some day to con- 
ceive it ; for the central essences link together and coordinate all the other members 
of the endarchy. Professor Alexander's simile would make the whole endarchy — 
the whole universe scientifically conceived — denote the God of the Pantheists, 
while the central essences, in which all the facts of the universe are ultimately 
joined together, would denote the God of the Theists. (A separate system of 
essences, apart from the endarchy of science, would be required to represent the 
God of the Deists.) % See above, p. 232. 

§ See above, p. 227. || Cf. below, pp. 266, 267. 

^ See above, p. 215, where it is pointed out that specialists in any particular 
branch of science are apt to be most concerned with the most central or abstract 
essences that belong to it. 

G. E. 16 



242 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 12. 4 

near derivatives which correspond in his brain to ^kik2--kp ^^^ its 
near derivatives in the endarchy of science. In other words, E\j^ j^^ ... j^^ 
will occupy a far more central position in Jones' neurography than 
that which ^kikz-kp occupies in the endarchy of science. Or, to put 
it in another way, while ^kik2-kp ^^^Y be far from central in the 
endarchy of science, the central elements in Jones' neurography will 
include E\^t^^...i. as well as E' and its immediate neighbours; but, 
as we have said*, E' , E\^, E\^j,^, ..., E\^j,^...j,p, tend to be in de- 
scending order of depth, so that the deepest of all the elements in 
Jones' neurography are those which correspond to E and its neigh- 
bouring essences in the simple factf, T;;.^^^...;^^- We see then how the 
central elements of different persons' neurographies, while having in 
common what is most important, may yet differ in matters of 
secondary but still high significance. 

In the endarchy of science, E^.^^.^^.^ is connected with far more 
essences by paths that traverse essences between ^jeikz-kp ^^^ the 
central essence, E, than by paths which radiate downward from E;i.jfc2-fc« 
to the fact-elements of the branch endarchy, S;;.^^^...^^- Suppose now 
that F' corresponds in Jones' neurography, and F in the endarchy 
of science, to some essence of a fact that has fortuitously come to 
Jones' knowledge; and that F' is outside his scientific endarchy, while 
F is outside the subject endarchy, S^^ifca •••*«• Then on the average 
F is more closely connected to E, and to any one of the essences 
Efci, E;tifc2. •••. between E and ^icik^-kp, than it is to any essence 
derived from ^icikz — kp- ^^ the average of a number of happenings 
to Jones, F' will therefore be more closely connected to his central 
elements J, E' , E\, ..., E\^j^^...^ , than to any other element of his 
scientific endarchy; and, among the central elements to which F' is 
thus most closely connected, it will in general be connected most 
closely of all to the most central element, E' . The large number of 
elements, in his personal endarchy but outside his scientific endarchy, 
thus connected to his most central elements E' , E\, ..., will help to 
keep them deepest; for they will tend to be excited by any chance 
happening that excites one of the outside elements in question. 
Multiplication of such connexions, between elements outside his 
scientific endarchy and his central purpose-elements, will thus tend 
to prevent any merely rational§ central element such as E\^^^...j^ 

* See above, p. 239. f See above, p. 213. 

X Cf. above, p. 230. 

§ As distinguished from a relatively emotional central element — i.e. an element 
more closely connected with affective-conative elements — belonging to a purpose- 
neurogram. 



11. 12. 4 NEUROGRAPHIES 243 

from becoming deeper than the purpose-elements E' , E\, .... Indeed, 
were it not for the tendency* of a large part of Jones' experiences to 
be empirically connected to his scientific endarchy through his central 
purpose-elements E', E\, ..., most of his reasoned thinking, while 
involving the excitement of E\^j^^...j. more than of any other element 
of his scientific endarchy, would not necessarily involve the excite- 
ment of E' and its neighbours; for these latter elements need not, in 
the case we have supposed, be traversed in passing from one element 
of his special subject endarchy f to any other. So the more his 
thought-activities are concerned with rational or voluntary thinking 
about his special subject (or branch of science, if his main work is 
study), the deeper will £"fcjfc2-fcp tend to become relative to E' and his 
other purpose-elements. However strong his central purpose-elements 
may once have been, he may, if much given to reasoned thinking 
about a special subject, reach the stage when he forgets his higher 
purposes and echoes Laplace's: 'Je n'ai pas besoin de cette 
hypothese-la.' % 

Such a tendency is, as we said, obviated if those elements of Jones' 
neurography (and the more diverse the experiences they record the 
better) which do not come within the system of his scientific endarchy, 
are directly connected to E' and its neighbours and through them to 
^'kikz-kp- Such connexions will, indeed, tend to form under the 
influence of involuntary thinking, since every thought-activity tends 
to become connected to the centre of an interest §. This tendency is 
greater, the wider and deeper the interest in question: and, in the case 
we have supposed, the interest-system with E', ■•',E\^^^...j. at its 
centre is not only Jones' widest and deepest interest-system, but 
the only one he has. But his educators, and especially he himself, 
must not be content to rely upon this tendency of involuntary thinking. 
They must, on the contrary, make every effort to connect the neuro- 
grams corresponding to the whole of his experience (and the wider 
the better) to his scientific endarchy, for the most part through his 
central purpose or ideal ||. Thus will the whole flux of his experience 
be most conveniently arranged for handy reference^. Thus too will 

* See above, p. 230. f S'fcifc2-"fcp* see above, p. 241. % See above, p. 216. 

§ See above, p. 91, where it is shewn that neurograms tend to become con- 
nected with interest-systems and therefore with the centres of such systems. 
And, since interest-systems tend to be endarchical (see above, p. 163), neurograms 
tend to become most closely connected with the central elements of interest- 
systems. See also p. 239. 

II We thus extend the observation already made (on pp. 86 and 91) upon the 
value in education of connecting new neurograms of important facts with deep 
wide interest-systems. See also p. 223 above. 

^ Cf. Whitehead, loc. cit. p. iii. 

16 — 2 



244 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 12. 4 

he best secure, so far as the conditions of human hfe permit, a per- 
fectly integrated mind*. 

Wide and diverse experience Hnked to learning — i.e. scientifically 
organised knowledge, corresponding as closely as possible to the 
endarchy of science — that may be narrow, but must form a single 
interest rather than several disconnected interests, and all subject to 
a supreme and dominant purpose in harmony with those of one's 
neighbours f, is therefore to be the aim of education in so far as it is 
concerned with forming neurograms | : a conclusion that was fore- 
shadowed at the end of Book I§. 

Or, as Lord Brougham said a century ago, 'A man should know 
something of everything and everything of something.' But all his 
knowledge and all his feelings should be linked together so as to form 
a single wide interest, whose neurographic correlative — a single wide 
interest-system — is the kind of personal endarchy that we have 
described earlier in this chapter. Our conception of a single wide 
interest will be further considered when we discuss the foundations 
of character. Meanwhile we shall use the words ' single wide interest ' 
to denote that organisation of thought which not only corresponds 
to a single personal endarchy of neurograms but is also centred in, 
and dominated by, a supreme purpose that is in harmony with 
those of one's neighbours. Such is the single wide interest which 
education should, as we have just said, aim at forming. 

We note, in passing, that the excitement at any part of a single 
wide interest-system will tend to spread towards the centre of that 
system II . This follows from the corollary^ to our third law. Accord- 
ingly, the possessor of a single wide interest will tend always to be 
conscious of his supreme and dominant purpose. 

* The facts which correspond to a person's unorganised neurograms and 
which, on account of their disorderly character, he will not be able to explain 
scientifically, he may describe as 'acts of God,' since their neurograms are directly 
connected with the central elements in his endarchy. But if, and when, he makes 
the necessary effort to fit the neurograms of these facts into their proper place 
in his particular personal endarchy, by reproducing there the connecting elements 
that exist in the complete endarchy of science, he will have a ' scientific explana- 
tion ' of the facts in question. The connecting neurograms will still be connected 
with the central elements, although the connecting path will be much longer 
since it has ceased to be short-circuited ; but, having explained the facts, he may 
cease to speak of them as 'acts of God.' 

t For the sake of the community or Commonwealth as a whole : see above, 
p. 240. 

X Cf. Morton Prince: 'Every form of education necessarily involves the 
artificial formation of such complexes ' {Loc. cit. p. 289.) 

§ On p. 23 above. || Cf. pp. 94 and 208. ^ On p. 89. 



CHAPTER 13 

CURIOSITY; AND THE INVOLUNTARY GROWTH OF 
SINGLE WIDE INTERESTS 

We proceed to consider how far this type of neurography tends to 
develop involuntarily — for 'The Integrative Action of the Nervous 
System ' * is not confined to spinal levels — and, in the next chapter, 
how its development may best be voluntarily secured. 

The neural mechanisms of several reflex movements are already 
developed at birth. These are our first neurograms. For example, 
a new born baby's iris contracts when a light is held near its open 
eyes. In lower animals more complex reflexes — sometimes called 
instincts — also exist from the very beginning. The chicken, that 
pecks at grains of corn almost immediately after coming out of its 
egg, has not been taught to do so : the link between its neurogram for 
the grain of corn, and its other neurogram whose excitement accom- 
panies the series of coordinated movements involved in stooping and 
pecking, is certainly innate and appears to be fully developed at 
birth. 

Experience, in the form of incoming sense impressions, modifies 
and adds to our innate neurograms. So great may this modification 
be amongst human beings that instinctive or other innate processes 
often cease to be recognisable by the casual observer. 

The modification of an innate neurography by subsequent ex- 
perience is included in the process of education, when that word is 
used in its widest sense. In the more restricted sense in which the 
word is commonly used, education includes the modification and 
development of an innate neurography by the formation of new 
neurograms corresponding, not to all facts of experience, but only to 
such as are selected by human educators |. But long before the pupil 
is old enough to take an active and voluntary part in his own education, 
his neurography — or, if it be preferred, his instincts and interests to 
which his neurography corresponds — already influences its own further 
development. It is true that facts which occur together in the world 
of experience tend, in consequence of our third lawlj:, to be repre- 

* Discussed by Professor Sherrington, loc. cit. 
t See above, p. 12. % On p. 79 above. 



246 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 13 

sented by connected neurograms*. But, according to the corollary f 
to that law, those experiences which include essences that belong to 
previously existing interests (including instincts) are selected for 
attention above aU other experiences. 

The selective influence of a person's existing neurography, not 
only upon the direction of his uninterrupted involuntary thinking, 
but also upon the attention he pays to the various elements of his 
environment, is increased by the instinct-emotion of curiosity-wonder. 
The latter effect we have already J illustrated by the incident of 
Newton and his apple, when the acceleration of the apple's fall 
stimulated Newton's curiosity and attracted his attention; and, lest 
it be complained that this incident was imaginary, we may also 
remind § ourselves how, when Darwin sailed to South America on 
H.M.S. Beagle, he found that the great ship, having nothing in common 
with the Fuegians' previous experience or interests, aroused no 
curiosity in their minds, but that the ship's boats and 'simple 
circumstances — such as the beauty of scarlet cloth or blue beads' — 
being novel examples of a familiar type, caused profound wonder 
among these savages. So those elements of a given environment that 
stimulate one man's curiosity will not arouse the curiosity of another, 
whose interests are different. And this selective influence, which 
causes one element of the environment to awaken more curiosity 
than another, is no less marked among the thought-activities that 
are presented during day-dreaming. Moreover, were it not for the 
operation of curiosity-wonder, the familiar elements in our thought, 
as in our environment, would be so vastly the most interesting that 
we should never notice anything new|l. Whenever, therefore, we are 
engaged in involuntary thinking — whether our thought-activities are 
stimulated from outside or from within the brain — curiosity-wonder 
is at work, modifjdng our thought-activities according to our pre- 
viously existing interests, making our interest-systems grow in width 
as well as in depth, and so producing a profound effect upon the 
development of our neurographies. But what effect? We have now 
to attempt to answer this question. 

Or, rather, since we have already ^ given our answer — that there 
tends to be built up, under the influence of curiosity-wonder, a single 
maximal endarchy of neurograms — we have now to give our reasons 
for that answer. We shall first carry a Httle further the deductions 
we have already** made from our account of the normal stimulus of 

* Cf. above, p. 230. f On p. 89 above. J See above, p. 93. § See above, p. 72. 
II Cf. above, p. 94. If On p. 221 above. ** On p. 222 above. 



IT. 13 CURIOSITY 247 

curiosity, namely, the unlooked-for juxtaposition of simple and 
familiar facts not previously associated*; and we shall then com- 
pare the conclusions so deduced with Poincare's observations upon 
the working of the same instinct. 

In the first place, then, it follows from the corollary to our third 
law that curiosity-wonder will tend to connect the central elements 
of any two maximal endarchies of neurograms not already connected f . 
If a neurography includes a number of maximal endarchies of 
different sizes, and if for the moment we suppose that the depth of 
each element is greater or less according as the number of pairs of 
elements derived from it is greater or less, curiosity-wonder tends 
most strongly to unite the central elements of the two largest end- 
archies; for these two elements are the deepest, and so correspond to 
the most familiar essences not hitherto connected. But the linking 
up of separate maximal endarchies through their central elements 
may not lead to the formation of a single maximal endarchy. For if 
curiosity-wonder did nothing but cause central elements of maximal 
endarchies, or other deepest elements, to be linked to deepest elements, 
the resulting organisation would be straggling and asymmetrical, 
since every new element or group of elements would be added to 
the central elements, instead of being inserted in the position of 
the corresponding essence or group of essences in the symmetrical 
endarchy of science |. But the effect of curiosity-wonder is not 
confined to making a first connexion between central essences of two 
hitherto disconnected facts. On the contrary, as we saw§, this 
instinct strives to concentrate excitement in both groups of neuro- 
grams so that further common elements may be abstracted, until at 
last the two groups become connected according to the connexions of 
the corresponding (groups of) essences in the endarchy of science ||. 

* See above, p. 92. t ^^^ above, p. 222. 

J Suppose for example that, at a certain stage of its development, a personal 
neurography contains two separate subj ect endarchies, 5'j.j j.^ . . . ^^ and •S'ji.j j.^ . . . tp . . . t, , 
each of whose elements corresponds to one or more of the essences or fact-elements 
(denoted by the same letters in Roman type and with the dashes omitted) 
of the endarchy of science. When, for the first time, any one element of 5'j.,j.j . jt^ 
is excited simultaneously with any one element of 5't,j.2..jtp...fc,, curiosity-wonder 
tends to connect the two subject endarchies through their central elements, 
E']ciic2...]e and £'j.jfc2.. J. j.^ respectively. The link thus formed short-circuits the 
corresponding path, Ek^k2...k;.^kik2...kpkp+i ■■■ 'Ekik2...kp...kt-T. '^kiki...kp...k,-ikt' in 
the endarchy of science. § On p. 92 above. 

II Thus, in our example, concentration of excitement in E'jc^^^ _ ^.^ j^^ and its 
neighbouring elements in the system of neurograms which corresponds to the 
(impressions of) experience from which Ej.,tj ..j. ..^.^ was abstracted, may lead to the 
abstraction of the various elements Ej., ^^ . . . ^^ . . . i^, , Ej., j^ . . . ^^ . . . fc,_j . . . . , £fc, i, . . . t^+i , 
^kiki...k which are, by hypothesis, connected with 'Ekiki...kp...i:, in the world of 
experience. 



248 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 13 

And, if the involuntary concentration of excitement that is directly 
due to the operation of the instinct is insufficient to produce this 
result*, sufficient concentration may result from the intervention of 
the Will in support of the instinctive process. To this point we shall 
shortly return. Meanwhile we conclude that the instinct-emotion of 
curiosity-wonder tends to develop every personal neurography into a 
single maximal endarchy corresponding to the [complete) endarchy of 
science; and so leads to the discovery] of the endarchy of science. 

This conclusion has now to be compared with Poincare's observa- 
tions on his motives for making his scientific discoveries and his 
feelings when he made them. To this end we first note, as a necessary 
consequence of our generalisation, that every time the instinctive 
process achieves its end by further developing a person's neurography 
into a single maximal endarchy corresponding to the endarchy of 
science, its achievement will be marked by a feeling of pleasurable 
satisfaction; for such a feeling follows the successful completion of 
every instinctive process % '• one's escape from danger by flight, for 
example, or the response to one's cries for help in distress §. Now 

* And so to connect S\^^^___j,^,,_-k^ to S'^^k^.-kp as 3^,1,.,...^^...^, is connected to 
Sfcifc2...jfc( in the endarchy of science. f See above, footnote || on p. 196. 

J Cf. W. McDougall: 'We seem justified in beUeving that the continued 
obstruction of instinctive striving is always accompanied by painful [or "un- 
pleasant" as we should rather say, since the researches of Head and Holmes on 
the neurology of pain and " unpleasure " {Brain, Vol. xxxiv, 1911, pp. 102 et seq.)] 
feeling, its successful progress towards its end by pleasurable feeling, and the 
achievement of its end by a pleasurable sense of satisfaction.' {Social Psychology, 
p. 28; italics mine.) 

§ I can find no evidence, from introspection or from any other source, that 
the feelings of pleasurable satisfaction or relief which mark the completion of 
different instinctive processes are themselves different in any essential respect. 
But each is accompanied by a vivid memory of the emotion that has just come 
to an end; and this memory, whose vividness is doubtless due to the continued 
activity of some of the neurograms whose excitement accompanied the full blast 
of the emotion, leaves no room for doubt which instinct has been responsible for 
the pleasurable satisfaction experienced. When that instinct has been curiosity, 
our satisfaction on its achievement of its end is accompanied by (if it does not 
include) the feeling that we understand the object of an erstwhile curiosity; that 
the strangeness has disappeared; that all fits harmoniously together. But if our 
emotion has not been pure wonder — the affect of curiosity— but wonder compounded 
with negative self-feeling, a compound which Dr McDougall {Social Psychology, 
p. 129) identifies with admiration, 'as soon as we feel that we completely under- 
stand the object we have admired, and can wholly account for it, our wonder 
ceases and the emotion evoked by it is no longer admiration' (McDougall, loc. cit. 
p. 129) but negative self-feeling, to which is added the pleasurable satisfaction 
due to the successful completion of the curiosity-wonder process. Or, if our 
emotion of wonder has been compounded with positive, instead of with negative, 
self-feeling, the feeling of pleasurable satisfaction that comes when we think that 
complete understanding has been reached will be accompanied by elation or 
positive self- feeling, and we shall want to ' swagger ' or ' swank ' and cry ' evprjKa 
like Archimedes, instead of wanting, like Kepler (cf. footnote || on p. 196 above), 
to reverence the Creator of the object of our emotion. 



II. 13 CURIOSITY 249 

when we do things under the compelling force of instinct (whether 
it be to organise-thought-by-developing-a-single-maximal-endarchy- 
of-neurograms, or to run-away-and-hide, or to strike, or to cry-out- 
for-help), we may say, with Dr McDougall*, that we act so because 
instinct is driving us ; or we may say, as children and other unsophis- 
ticated persons commonly do say, that we act so because we feel the 
corresponding emotion (whether it be wonder f, or fear, or anger, or 
distress) ; or we may say, with Locke and Hume and the lesser 
hedonistic philosophers, that we act so for the sake of the pleasurable 
satisfaction that will follow the results of our action when the instinctive 
process is complete. If we are neither familiar with modern psychology 
nor altogether unsophisticated, the third is the way in which we shall 
probably account for our conduct. 

And this, in effect, is just the account that Poincare does give of 
his motives for organising his thought and making his scientific 
discoveries I . 'The scientist,' he writes, 'does not study nature 
because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure 
in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful.' § 

In order to make sure that this observation of Poincare's is the 
very one which our generalisation || would lead us to expect, and by 
which it is therefore confirmed, we have to verify (i) that by the 
' study of nature ' Poincare means the organisation of thought on the 
lines of the endarchy of science and so the discovery of that endarchy ; 
and (2) that the pleasure which Poincare observed the scientist to take 
in the beauty of nature is no other than the pleasurable satisfaction 
that results when the curiosity- wonder process has achieved its end. 

First then we have to shew that, by the study of nature, Poincare 
means, not merely to observe natural phenomena more or less at 
random, but also (and especially) to organise experience of nature; 
or, in our terminology, to ' discover ' the endarchy of science ; or, to 
develop a neurography that shall, so far as possible, correspond to the 
endarchy of science. 

* 'Instincts are the prime movers of all human activity.' (Social Psychology, 
p. 44.) 

I A young child would not mention this emotion by name, but would probably 
describe it by saying that its object 'looked so funny' or (if the child were a little 
older) 'appeared so strange.' 

X He gives several accounts; or, rather, he describes the same feelings and 
motives in several different ways. That which follows in the text strikes the 
keynote of all the rest; and is, moreover, the one which Poincare himself puts 
first. From some of the others we shall quote in the following pages. The reader 
who desires still more evidence that Poincare's observations confirm our generalisa- 
tion (in italics on p. 248) is referred to Poincare's book, Science and Method. 

§ Loc. cit. p. 22. II In italics on p. 248 above. 



250 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 13 

Originally we followed Poincare in describing our experience of 
nature as experience of a 'hierarchy of facts.'* For him, as for us, 
the ' nature ' that is studied is a (complete) endarchy of fact-elements 
which are gradually discovered and organised in a growing (incom- 
plete f ) endarchy as the study proceeds. Indeed, his complete endarchy 
and ours have much in common ; and so have the processes by which, 
as discovery proceeds, the partial J endarchies are gradually built up. 
The resemblance between these endarchies ('nature' in process of 
discovery), and between the processes (by which nature is discovered 
or 'studied'), as envisaged by Poincare on the one hand, and as we 
have described them on the other, must now be examined more closely. 

The hierarchy of which Poincare speaks, like the endarchy of 
science that we have described, is a mode of conceiving the facts of 
experience as an ' organised body of connected facts.' § ' Harmonious ' ]j 
is the word Poincare uses to describe the organisation of the endarchy 
of facts — for the most part still undiscovered — which is the world of 
experience. It is, therefore, already clear that Poincare's conception 
of the world of experience completely accords, so far as it goes, with 
the endarchy of science that we have described. And it goes further 
than we have yet said. For the complete endarchy, as it is gradually 
discovered in the form of an incomplete endarchy, is, according to 
Poincare, so designed as to make for 'economy of thought,... economy 
of effort'^ in thinking. It must, therefore**, have the form of a 
maximal endarchy, at each stage of its discovery. Poincare's complete 

* On p. 194 above; and Poincare, loc. cit. p. 16. 

t See above, footnote § on p. 199. 

X See above, p. 197. 

§ Cf. p. 196 above. 

II For example; 'Our mind... would lose itself in the complexity of the world 
if that complexity were not harmonious.' {Loc. cit. p. 30; italics mine.) 

Or again; 'What I mean [by the beauty of nature] is that more intimate 
beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts, and which a pure 

intelligence can grasp This special beauty, the sense of the harmony of the 

world ' (Loc. cit. p. 22; italics mine.) 

Once more, Poincare refers to 'this feeling, this intuition of mathematical 
order, which enables us to guess hidden harmonies and relations.' (Loc. cit. p. 50; 
itahcs mine.) 

The same idea is expressed, although the word harmony (which we have 
italicised in each of these quotations) is not used, when Poincare speaks of the 
facts that interest physicists as being ' those that have an analogy with many 
other facts and do not appear to us as isolated, but as closely grouped with others. 
...The isolated fact attracts the attention of all, of the layman as well as the 
scientist. But what the true scientist alone can see is the link that unites several 
facts which have a deep but hidden analogy ' — i.e. a connexion, as yet undiscovered, 
in the complete endarchy. (Loc. cit. p. 27.) 

^ Loc. cit. p. 23. 
** The proof of our minimum-path proposition (on pp. 208 to 210 above) is 
given in Appendix C, on p, 492 below. 



II. 13 CURIOSITY 251 

endarchy — the world of experience, as he conceives it — is therefore 
a maximal endarchy. The resemblance between nature, as Poincare 
conceives it, and our endarchy of science is therefore as complete as 
could be desired*. 

It remains to examine the resemblance between the process by 
which Poincare observed that nature is studied or discovered, and the 
process by which we have described the (incomplete) endarchy of 
science as being gradually built up on the lines of the complete 
endarchy as that is gradually discovered. For our purpose it will 
suffice to note that, just as we began with the abstraction of essences], 
so Poincare begins with the selection^ of simple^ facts; just as we 
subsequently abstracted or selected the most general essences, which 
were the most important or valuable for our purpose the greater the 
number of facts they united \\, so Poincare observes that the general^ 
facts or laws are the most valuable for selection, and that their value 
depends upon the number of previously known elements which they 
unite**; and, finally, just as the essences, which, in our description, 
were successively abstracted, were such as to combine with those 
previously abstracted so as to form a single maximal endarchy, so 
Poincare observed that the instinct (or, as he puts it, the emotion) 
which drives men to discover the harmonious endarchy of science 

* In case confirmatory^ evidence be required, Poincare supplies it by saying 
that the 'economic' — or, as we should say, 'minimum-path,' and therefore 
'maximal' — endarchy that the study of nature tends gradually to build up, 
produces the same feeling of 'beauty' (p. 23) or 'aesthetic satisfaction' (p. 31) 
as is produced by the complete endarchy which is the world of experience; so 
that this complete endarchy is presumably a maximal endarchy. His words are : 
'economy of thought, that economy of effort which... is the constant tendency 
of science, is a source of beauty as well as a practical advantage. The buildings 
we admire are those in which the architect has succeeded in proportioning the 
means to the end, in which the columns seem to carry the burdens imposed on 
them lightly and without effort, like the graceful caryatids of the Erechtheum.' 
{Loc. cit. p. 23.) And again: 'This aesthetic satisfaction' — 'the sentiment of 
mathematical elegance ' — ' is consequently connected with the economy of thought. 
Again the comparison with the Erechtheum occurs to me, but I do not wish to 
serve it up too often.' {Loc. cit. p. 31.) 

t See above, p. 197. 

I 'We cannot know all the facts.. ..We must make a selection.' (Loc. cit. p. 15.) 
'Discovery is discernment, selection.' (Loc. cit. p. 51.) 

§ 'Our selection should be made [of] the most interesting facts,... those which 
have a chance of recurring.... Which, then, are the facts which have a chance of 
recurring? In the first place, simple facts.' (Loc. cit. pp. 17, 18.) 

II See above, p. 199. 

^ ' It is necessary, therefore, to think for those who do not like thinking, and 
as they are many, each one of our thoughts must be useful in as many circumstances 
as possible. For this reason, the more general a law is, the greater is its value. 
This shows us how our selection should be made.' (Loc. cit. p. 17.) 

** 'If a new result is to have any value, it must unite elements long since 
known. ..and suddenly introduce order ' (Loc. cit. p. 30.) 



252 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 13 

'makes us select the facts best suited to contribute to this 
harmony.'* 

It appears then that by the 'study of nature/ in the passage 
which we quoted on p. 249, Poincare means nothing else than the 
organisation of thought on the lines of the endarchy of science that 
we have described; or, what amounts to the same thing, the develop- 
ment in the student's brain of a neurography that corresponds to this 
endarchy as closely as possible. 

We have next to prove that the aesthetic pleasure which Poincare 
observed the scientist to take in the beauty of nature is no other than 
the feeHng of pleasurable satisfaction that results when the curiosity- 
wonder process achieves its end. We first reriiark that the 'beauty' 
of nature which gives rise to the feeling observed by Poincare is 
'beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts.' f The 
feeling caused by this beauty has therefore the same origin as the 
' feeling of elegance ' of which Poincare speaks as being felt by mathe- 
maticians who 'attach a great importance to the elegance of their 
methods and of their results.' | For that which 'gives us the feeling 
of elegance in a solution or a demonstration ' is again ' the harmony 
of the different parts, their symmetry, and their happy adjustment; 
it is, in a word, all that introduces order, all that gives them unity.... '§ 
Moreover, the ' beauty ' and the ' elegance ' in question are not merely 
the same in origin; they are, for Poincare's purpose, synonymous. 
For example, he asks 'what are the mathematical entities to which 
we attribute this character of beauty and elegance, which are capable 
of developing in us a kind of aesthetic emotion'? And again, on the 
same page he writes of 'the feeling of mathematical beauty, of the 
harmony of numbers and forms and of geometric elegance.' || 

So the pleasure which the scientist takes in the beauty of nature, 
and which, according to Poincare, causes him to study nature, is the 
same as the mathematicians' 'feeling of elegance.' But 'elegance,' 
says Poincare, 'may result from the feeling of surprise caused by 
the unlooked-for occurrence together of objects not habitually 

* Loc. cit. p. 22. Cf. also, on p. 59, where, after discussing what kind of com- 
bination of facts constitutes the kind of discovery to wliich the same instinct 
(or, as he says, emotion) drives mathematicians, Poincare proceeds: 'Now, what 
are the mathematical entities to which we attribute this character of beauty and 
elegance, which are capable of developing in us a kind of aesthetic emotion? 
Those whose elements are harmoniously arranged so that the mind can, without 
effort, take in the whole without neglecting the details. This harmony is at once 
a satisfaction to our aesthetic requirements, and an assistance to the mind which 
it supports and guides.' {Loc. cit. p. 59.) 

f Loc. cit. p. 22. X Loc. cit. p. 30. 

§ Loc. cit. pp. 30, 31. II Loc. cit. p. 59. 



II. 13 CURIOSITY 253 

associated ' * ; in which case the ' feehng of elegance ' evidently follows 
wonder f (which Poincare calls ' surprise ') . Or elegance may result from 
' contrast ' t ; in which case it again follows the appropriate stimulus 
to wonder. Poincare sums up both cases in the words: ' Briefly stated, 
the sentiment of mathematical elegance is nothing but the satisfaction 
due to some conformity between the solution we wish to discover and 
the necessities of our mind.' § These ' necessities ' must mean ' instinct ' : 
indeed, Poincare himself uses the word when he speaks of the ' in- 
stinctive and unacknowledged preoccupation '|| that drives the scientist 
to search for truth, and again when he refers to ' our natural instinct 
for mathematical elegance.' ^ And there is no instinct that can be 
meant except curiosity. It follows that the pleasure which, according 
to Poincare, the scientist takes in the beauty of nature, and which 
attracts him to study nature, is a feeling due to the satisfaction of 
his curiosity. 

Poincare adds that 'this aesthetic satisfaction is consequently 
connected with the economy of thought.'** We now see how. For 
the ' aesthetic satisfaction ' follows the success of the curiosity-wonder 
process in organising thought in a maximal endarchy, which we have 
seenft to be the most economical organisation possible. It remains 
to add that we shall in future use the phrase ' aesthetic satisfaction ' 
only to denote the pleasurable feeling that results when the instinct 
of curiosity achieves its endJJ. 

* Loc. cit. p. 31. 

f Because it follows the appropriate stimulus to wonder: see above, p. 92. 

J 'The contrast between the simplicity of the means and the complexity of 
the problem presented.' {Loc. cit. p. 31.) 

§ Loc. cit. p. 31. (Italics mine.) 

II The whole passage is worth quoting, for we shall have to refer to it again. 
It follows closely on that quoted on p. 249 and it reads : ' If nature were not 
beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be worth living. 
I am not speaking, of course,... of the beauty of qualities and appearances. I am 
far from despising this, but it has nothing to do with science. What I mean is 
that more intimate beauty which comes from the harmonious order of its parts, 
and which a pure intelHgence can grasp.... It is, then, the search for this special 
beauty, the sense of the harmony of the world, that makes us select the facts 
best suited to contribute to this harmony; just as the artist selects those features 
of his sitter which complete the portrait and give it character and life. And there 
is no fear that this instinctive and unacknowledged preoccupation will divert 
the scientist from the search for truth. We may dream of a harmonious world, 
but how far it will fall short of the real world ! The Greeks, the greatest artists 
that ever were, constructed a heaven for themselves; how poor a thing it is beside 
the heaven as we know it!' {Loc. ctt. pp. 22, 23.) 

^ Loc. cit. p. 60. 
** This is the next sentence to that last quoted from p. 31. 
ft On pp. 208 to 210 and Appendix C, p. 492. 

XX Aesthetic satisfaction is therefore the feeling that emerges whenever any- 
thing that has aroused curiosity, or appeared wonderful, has at last been understood. 
The understanding for which curiosity strives means the harmonious arrangement 



254 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 13 

We have thus verified that Poincare's observations agree as 
closely as could be desired with the conclusion* which we deduced 
from our account f of the normal stimulus to curiosity-wonder. Our 
conclusion was that the instinct-emotion of curiosity-wonder urges 
men to build up their own neurographies in the form of single maximal 
endarchies corresponding to the endarchy of science, and so to dis- 
cover that endarchy. 

— according to the endarchy of science — of one's ideas about the object of one's 
curiosity; and the harmony is not only of these ideas with one another (so as to 
form a scientific endarchy on their own account) but also of the corresponding 
neurograms with the whole of one's neurography. 

* In italics on p. 248 above. f On p. 92 above. 



CHAPTER 14 

REASONING; AND THE VOLUNTARY DEVELOPMENT 
OF SINGLE WIDE INTERESTS 

§ I. Will and Curiosity. 

While, however, curiosity-wonder makes men want to organise 
thought in this way, it does not foUow that the organisation of thought 
is a wholly involuntary process. We have, on the contrary, already* 
pointed out that the intervention of the Will may be necessary to 
complete the process and to achieve the goal towards which the 
instinct strives. To this point we now return and ask: How exactly 
does the Will cooperate with the instinct of curiosity to organise 
thought in the way we have described? 

To answer this question, we take up again the main thread of 
our argument. Having formulated certain laws that 'govern' in- 
voluntary thought, we went on to consider voluntary thinking and 
so came to the effect of Will in everyday life f. Will, we said, intervenes 
when the involuntary guides of the stream of thought are in conflict J ; 
its intervention makes new paths in the thinker's neurography § ; 
and, of these new paths, those which yield the ideal solution of a 
conflict — those which, as Poincare has it, are at once the most 
beautiful and the most useful || — are those made by reasoning^. 
Then we saw that, among other characteristics of reasoning, every 
step must be true**; and we found this to mean that the new paths 
made in anybody's neurography as he reasons, must correspond, 
element for element, with the endarchy of science. Finally, we have 
just seen that curiosity moves men to strive for this correspondence; 
but curiosity alone may not achieve it without the Will's aid. 

For example, if two elements of anybody's — Jones' — neurography 
belong to two different maximal endarchies and are both excited at 
the same time, the excitement will tend to spread to the central 
elements, Ep and Eq say, of each endarchy; and curiosity-wonder 
will make him want to connect these central elements by a path of 

* See above, p. 248. f See above, Chapter 7, § 6. 

j See above, pp. 141 and 162. § See above, p. 165. 

II Cf. Poincare, loc. cit. p. 59. ^ See above, pp. 175 and 179. 
** See above, p. 189. 



256 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 14. i 

linked neurogram-elements which correspond to the chain of succes- 
sive essences that connect Ep with Eg in the endarchy of science. 
Sometimes this connexion may be made unconsciously; or, at all 
events, without any effort of Will; as, for example, when Ep is 
directly connected to Eg in theendarchy of science. But, more often, 
reasoned thought (involving the Will's intervention*) is required to 
complete the connexion. Indeed, most of us know only too well that 
curiosity alone, without voluntary effort, will enable us neither to 
organise our neurographies so as to correspond with discovered 
portions of the endarchy of science nor to discover new regions of 
that endarchy. In other words, without an effort of Will we can 
neither acquire existing knowledge (to any considerable extent) nor 
discover new knowledge. 

We may distinguish two occasions when the Will may support 
the tendency of curiosity-wonder to connect two (hitherto separate 
but simultaneously excited) neurograms, A and Z, by means of a series 
of connected neurogram-elements that correspond to essences or fact- 
elements in the endarchy of science. The first of these occasions — the 
first bout of voluntary thinking, the first period of conscious work — 
commonly precedes the instinctive (curiosity-wonder) process, while 
the second follows the completion of the process f . 

§ 2. The First Period of Conscious Work. 
The first bout of voluntary thinking has the effect of increasing 
the activity both of A and Z, as the thinker, in his efforts to complete 
the path from A to Z, comes back, over and over again, both to A and 
to Z, that he may begin afresh to make a path that shall connect 
with whatever path he has made from the other end. Now we have 

* ' Reasoning is pre-eminently a process of voluntary (willed) thinking ' : see 
above, p. 187. 

f Poincare quotes examples from his personal experience — and similar 
examples might be multiplied from the experience of other mathematicians and 
physicists — shewing how the missing link in a chain of reasoning, which intense 
and prolonged efforts had failed to complete, would unexpectedly present itself 
during a holiday excursion or when 'crossing the street,' and would stand the 
test of subsequent concentrated thought. Such inspirations are, Poincare supposes 
(p. 60), due to the involuntary, or even unconscious, operation of that which we 
have identified with the curiosity-wonder process. And he adds: 'There is another 
remark to be made regarding the conditions of this unconscious work, which is, 
that it is not possible, or in any case not fruitful, unless it is first preceded and 
then followed by a period of conscious work. These sudden inspirations are never 
produced (and this is sufficiently proved already by the examples I have quoted) 
except after some days of voluntary efforts which appeared absolutely fruitless, 
in which one thought one had accomplished nothing, and seemed to be on a totally 
wrong track. These efforts, however, were not as barren as one thought; they set 
the unconscious machine in motion, and without them it would not have worked 
at all, and would not have produced anything.' {Loc. cit. p. 56.) 



II. 14. 2 REASONING 257 

said * that the stimulus to curiosity is greater, the more familiar are 
the two facts, A and Z, between which the instinct strives to make 
connexions. The repeated excitement of A and Z during the first 
bout of voluntary thinking (or, as Poincare calls it, ' conscious work ') 
therefore increases the stimulus to the subsequent instinctive process 
(or ' unconscious work ') . Indeed, Poincare has observed that, with 
this increased stimulus, the instinctive process often plays a most 
important part in mathematical discovery, when, without it, the 
'unconscious machine... would not have produced anything.' f More- 
over, we have already pointed out the important involuntary effect 
exercised upon the reasoning process by the activity of the terminal 
elements!. These, so long as they remain active, guide the excitement 
towards themselves or, intermediately, towards neurograms with 
which they are connected. 'As a rule,' said William James, Z (and 
similarly. A) 'overshadows the process from the start.' § And the 
active final neurogram, Z, overshadowing the reasoning process by 
which a thinker is to connect an idea of A to an idea of Z, determines 
which particular essence — an essence belonging to which particular 
subject endarchy — of A he will use in beginning to reason about that 
fact. For example, according to the purpose of his reasoning about A, 
his excitement may first be restricted to a physical science group of 
meanings, in which case the essence E^ (of A) from which he starts 
will belong to a physical science branch endarchy. 

§ 3. The Interval of Unconscious Work. 

After the first period of conscious or willed work, comes the 
instinctive process ||. It may be an unconscious process, as in the 
examples given by Poincare^ from his experience of mathematical 
discovery, examples that might be multiplied indefinitely. And this 
unconscious process may suddenly burst in upon consciousness, now 
occupied by quite other matters, with an inspiration — a vivid con- 
viction — that here is the reasoned path between A and Z that was 
sought unsuccessfully during the first period of conscious work. How 

* See above, p. 92. 

t Loc. cit. p. 56. See footnote f on P- 256. 

X Above, p. 180. We were there referring only to one terminal element 
(an element of Z), but what we said is equally true of the other (an element of A ) 
also. § Loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 338. 

II The following two pages, as far as the end of the section on p. 259, form a 
digression from our present subject, namely, the function of voluntary thinking 
in the development of single wide interest-systems. But the matters dealt witli 
in this digression can be most conveniently considered at this point. 

^ Loc. cit. pp. 52 to 55. 

G. E. 17 



258 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 14. 8 

are we to account for the fact* that the solution — a solution which, 
as we shall see in a moment, is generally the true solution — of our 
problem thus finds its way into the focus of consciousness, when all 
the rest of the process, perhaps including tentative solutions, re- 
mained unconscious? The increase of excitement that accompanies 
this stage of the process at once suggests itself as the answer ; and for 
two reasons. In the first place, the instinct is just achieving the goal 
of its conation, so that we should expect the accompanying emotional 
excitement to be greatest. And secondly, the final link in the chain 
of elements that connects A to Z unites these two active systems, 
draining excitement from them both f . Indeed, this final link commonly 
corresponds to the highest, or most central J, or most valuable, of 
all the fact-elements or essences in the endarchy of science, that 
form the corresponding path of connexion between A and Z in 
that endarchy. 'It is certain,' says Poincare, 'that the combinations 
which present themselves to the mind in a kind of sudden illumination 
after a somewhat prolonged period of unconscious work are generally 
useful and fruitful '§ — or, as we have said, valuable. 

When one of these sudden illuminations gives us the clue to the 
solution of our problem, and indeed makes the whole thing that had 
puzzled us by its complexity seem marvellously clear and simple, 
we feel inspired, and as if our mental processes were altogether above 
their normal level. And, since these sudden inspirations often follow 
an unconscious process that has revealed a connexion (or, as Poincare 
says, a ' combination ') which the preceding period of conscious work 
failed to disclose, are we to say that there is an unconscious ego, or 
a subliminal ego, that is 'superior' to the conscious ego||? Are we to 
follow Mr Kenneth Richmond and describe the thought processes, 
which lead to these inspirations, as 'superconscious'^? We shall not 
use these words, but we do well to recognise the truth which they are 
intended to express. It is true that creative thinking, marked by the 

* Poincare records the fact and regards it as 'most mysterious.' {Loc. cit. 

P- 58.) 

f By 'multiple stimulation.' Cf. above, pp. 83 and 134. 

i Cf. pp. 221 and 247 above. § Loc. cit. p. 58. 

II Poincare, after reviewing the facts which we have summarised in foot- 
note t on p. 256 above, asks approximately the same question; and he adds 
that he would be loth to accept an affirmative answer. (Loc. cit. pp. 57, 58.) 
Dr Morton Prince is of the same opinion. (See The Dissociation of a Personality , 
p. 85.) 

^ Education and Liberty (1918), p. 221. Again, on p. 237, he writes: 'It is 
instructive that in the time of the Gothic... buildings were produced which were 
not only miracles of art but miracles of engineering. It is impossible not to conclude 
that the extraordinarily complex strains and stresses of Gothic architecture were 
superconsciously worked out.' 



II. 14. 3 REASONING 259 

'discovery' of valuable combinations and so making important pro- 
gress towards the goal of scientific thought, is often — and perhaps 
only — accomplished when active consciousness is somehow side- 
tracked: when, in fact, the Will is not intervening in the train of 
thought in question, and when there is no interference by extraneous 
thought-activities, whether due to active interest-systems or to in- 
coming sense-impressions. This removal of normal inhibitions* — if 
we may so summarise the description we have just given of the 
conditions that favour creative thinking — occurs when conscious 
thought is occupied with something quite different from the problem 
whose solution is being unconsciously discovered. It also occurs when 
we consciously fix our attention on some object, whether a windmill 
on the horizon or a pattern on the carpet, so as to leave the involuntary 
(but now conscious) creative train of thought free from interference. 
Our ability to secure this freedom depends in part upon the extent 
to which we have previously succeeded in exciting the activity of 
A and Z whose connexion we are seeking to effect; and partly upon 
the size and activity of extraneous interest-systems. It is doubtless 
for this latter reason that, as one of the most famous of British 
physicists has remarked, it is as a young graduate with no responsi- 
bilities and no anxieties that one has one's best chance of making 
discoveries. But let no one suppose that, in attributing our moments 
of inspiration to the free working of the curiosity-wonder instinct, 
we are debasing what is noble or confusing the higher with the lower, 
the ' superconscious ' with the subconscious. Because, in various 
degrees, we share with lower animals some of our emotions, we cannot 
argue that none of them affects our highest thought-processes. Love 
{dfydTTTj) itself is an emotion; and there is nothing absurd or incon- 
sistent in the suggestion that divine inspiration may operate by the 
means that we have described as ' curiosity-wonder.' f 

§ 4. The Second Period of Conscious Work. 

The second occasion % for the intervention of the Will, in support 
of the tendency of curiosity-wonder to secure the connexion of A to 
Z, follows, we said, the completion of the instinctive process. It is 
needed 'to work out the results of the inspiration, to deduce the 
immediate consequences and put them in order and to set out the 

* Cf. K. Richmond, loc. cit. p. 239. 

t Cf . K. Richmond : ' If any impatient Christian wants to know why I am 
leaving divine inspiration out of account, I will explain that I am doing nothing 
of the kind. I am trying to find out how it works.' [Loc. cit. p. 251.) 

X See above, p. 256. 

17 — 2 



26o THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 14. 4 

demonstrations; but, above all, it is necessary to verify them.'* For 
although 'when a sudden illumination invades the mathematician's 
mind, it most frequently happens that it does not mislead him... it 
also happens sometimes... that it will not stand the test of verifica- 
tion.' t Hence the need for attempting to verify an inspiration during 
the second period of conscious thought that should follow it. The 
inspiration is, for this purpose, voluntarily taken as a hypothesis. If, 
for example, we have an inspiration that E^^ is the fact, or rather 
the essence, we are seeking to complete the connexion between A 
and Z, we have to verify, during the second period of conscious 
thought, every step of the reasoning by which E^^ is connected to 
some essence E^ of A on the one hand and to some essence E^ of 
Z on the other. Let us follow the verification of some of these steps % . 
Suppose that it is Jones who has had the inspiration that E^^ is the 
fact (essence) he is seeking to connect E^ with E^, and let E'^,^, E' ^ 
and E' 2: denote Jones' neurograms for the essences E^^, E^ and E_^ 
respectively. Then, as we saw§, each of the neurogram-elements 
E\ , E' ^ and E' ^ may correspond to other essences in the endarchy 
of science in addition to the one essence, E^ or E^j^ or E^, but may 
not correspond to other essences instead ofF.^ or E^^ or E^ respectively. 
Suppose further that E'p, E'q and E\ denote three neurogram- 
elements which are excited in succession as Jones' thought follows 
the connexion in his brain between E' ^ and f'^. In order to verify 
the argument by which he connects E^ to E^, Jones must not only 
(i) verify every step in the argument but also (2) verify that the 
several steps — and, in particular, the successive steps — hang together 
and lead somewhere. 

First, to verify that every step in the argument is true by itself, 
Jones has to make sure that every two successive neurogram-elements, 
say E' p and E'q, are connected by no mere fortuitous association, 
but in the intimate way described on p. 198. In other words, Ep and 
Eg are essences 1| one of which is directly or indirectly derived^ from 
the other; or, what is, perhaps a simpler way of expressing the same 
thing, Tp and Tq are ' simple facts ' * * one of which contains or includes 

* Poincare, loc. cit. p. 56. f Poincare, loc. cit. p., 60. 

X Fig. 10 on p. 178 illustrates some of the steps by which A is connected with 
Z and may be referred to in this connexion. 

§ On p. 233 above. 

II Ep and Eg are related to E'p and E'q just as E^ (or E^ or Ez) is related to 
E'^ (or E'jf or E'z). ^ See above, pp. 203 et seq. 

** The definition of a simple fact is given on p. 203. The notation (Tp and T,^) 
is explained there and on p. 207, and the diagrammatic representation of a ' simple 
fact' is stated on p. 213. 



II. 14. 4 REASONING 261 

the other. And this relation between portions of the endarchy of 
science itself is, of course, true. 

Secondly, having verified that successive neurogram-elements 
are thus connected in pairs — for example, E' p to E'q — according to 
the endarchy of science, Jones has still to make sure that each 
step in his argument (corresponding to a single pair, E' p and E'q 
say) is related to the next step (corresponding to the connexion 
between E'q and E'j^, so that these successive steps shall lead some- 
where definite. That is to say, Jones has to make sure that some 
definite relation obtains between every three successive undivided 
neurograms, as well as between every two. For example, if the relation 
between Tp and Tq , namely 

Tp is (contained by or containing) T^ •••(!). 

is related to the relation between T^ and T^, namely 

T^ is (contained by or containing) T^ •••(2), 

by the condition that the first, or else the second, alternative shall 
be taken in both (i) and (2), then the successive steps make a path 
leading straight downwards or outwards (if the first alternative be 
selected, or straight upwards or inwards if the second be chosen) in 
a direct line, such as ^kiici...icp^kiic^...icj,icj,+^iciic^-k^kj,^^ — in the 
endarchy of science. Moreover, in this case (i) and (2) reduce to one 
type of deductive syllogism; for, taking the first (or descending) 
alternative, (i) and (2) may be written 

Tp is (contained by) * T^ " 

and Tq is (contained by) T^ I -"(S). 

therefore Tp is (contained by) Tp 

and, taking the second (or ascending) alternative, (i) and (2) become 

Tp is (containing) Tg ' 

and Tg is (containing) Tp\ •••(4)- 

therefore Tp is (containing) T^ 

If then the major and minor premises (i.e. the first two lines) of (3) 
hold for every three successive simple facts in Jones' reasoning, and 
so relate every step (connecting two successive simple facts) to its 
successor, he may be sure that his train of reasoning is leading straight 
down a direct line in the endarchy of science from one essence (Ej^ 

* The words 'contained by' are placed in brackets so as to conform to the 
general usage, according to which the elements of a syllogism are connected by 
the word 'is.' 



262 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 14. 4 

perhaps) to another (say E^) that is indirectly derived from it*. 
Similarly, if the major and minor premises of (4) hold for every three 
successive simple facts in Jones' reasoning, his train of reasoning is 
following straight up a direct line of the endarchy of science, perhaps 
from E^ to E^^ . 

We may remind ourselves here that the essence which comes as 
an inspiration — the result of the working of the curiosity-wonder 
process — to complete the connexion between A and Z, is commonly 
the highest or most central f essence E^^ in the endarchy of science 
path from E^ to E^. In that case E^^ is connected both to E^ and 
to E^ by directly descending paths, so that Jones will have to use 
only deductive reasoning to connect his inspiration with E^ and with 
E^. Thus it is that, in a passage we have already J quoted, Poincare 
speaks of its being necessary to deduce the consequences of the 
inspiration during the second period of conscious thought. 

But it is only when two essences — say E^ and E^ — of the endarchy 
of science are such that one of them is directly or indirectly derived 
from the other, that the path connecting them is wholly a direct 
ascending or descending line, in which every three successive elements 
are connected by deductive reasoning. As a rule, the direct path 
between any two essences — E^ and E^ — selected at random from the 
endarchy of science, consists of two wholly ascending or descending 
lines united in the most central essence, E^^ , of the whole path. Then 
E^ may be connected with Ej^j by deductive reasoning, and so may 
be £3^ with E^. But the same is not true of the three successive 
essences with E^i^ in the middle. Suppose that these are E^^, E^ and 
Kj^, where E^ forms part of the descending path from E^ to E^, 
and Ejf forms part of the descending path from E^^ to E^. Then we 
know that the simple fact T^ forms part of, or is contained by, T^^ 
and all its derivatives including T^ , and that Tji^ also forms part of 
Tjf and all its derivatives including T^. And this is all we know of 
the connexion between T^^ and T^^, Ej^ and E^f, or £'^ and E'j^. 

This series of relation may be put in the form of an inductive 
syllogism thus 

* For, if Tp represents the simple fact E Ej, Ej-j^^ ••■ ^kiic2...kp> it follows 
from the first line of (3) that Tg represents the simple fact E Ej.j ^kik^ ■■• 
Efcjfc, ...ip ... ^kiki ...kp...k</' and, from the second line of (3), that T« represents 
the simple fact ^'E^, ...'Eka2...kp ■■■'E-krk2...kp...k, ■■■ 'E'ic,k,...k!,...k^...kr' so that 
the lowest essences Ep ( = Ej-^^^^ ... j^), E^^ ( = Efc^j^ ... i^) and E„ ( = E^jj^ ...fc,), to which, 
inter alia, E'p, E'^ and E\ correspond, form a descending, but not necessai'ily 
consecutive, series of elements in the same direct line, namely E E^-i Ej.,jj ... 

^kikt ...kp ••• ^kiki...kq ••• '^kikt ...kr •••• 

f See above, p. 258. See also p. 222 above. X See pp. 259, 260 above. 



II. 14. 4 REASONING 263 



.(5). 



Tj^j is (contained by) T^ 

and every (derivative of) T^^ is similar to T^^ 

(for it contains Tj^) 

therefore every (derivative of) Tj^ is (similar to part of) T^^ 

where the words that are not included in the usual statement of the 
syllogism are enclosed in brackets. If Jones, in attempting to verify 
the connexion he has made between E^ and E^ , finds that three consecu- 
tive neurogram-elements,£''^,£'^and£''^,are related to each other by 
means of the first two lines of (5), he may rest assured that the path 
in the endarchy of science ascends in a direct line from E^ to E^ and 
descends in a direct line from E^^ to E;^^; but, as before, E^^, E^ and 
E;^ are not necessarily adjoining essences in the endarchy of science. 

If we are asked why we have expressed the relation between three 
essences E^, E^ and E^,^, such that E^^ is the most central essence 
in the direct path from E^ to E^^, in the form (5), resembling an 
inductive syllogism, our answer is threefold. In the first place, this 
is a convenient form in which to express the relationship. In the 
second place, every three successive essences (E^, E^ and E;^) in the 
endarchy of science — every three essences, that is, such that the 
mean (E^) is directly connected to each of the extremes (E^^ and E^) — 
are related either by deductive reasoning, expressed in the first two 
lines of (3) or of (4), or by the first two lines of (5), which it is therefore 
natural to identify with induction. And, thirdly, while our usual 
(conscious) reasoning, as we have illustrated it in Fig. 10 on p. 178 and 
the accompanying text, is wholly deductive in character and follows 
either an ascending or a descending line in the endarchy of science, 
the link in a chain of reasoning that is commonly furnished by the 
involuntary, or even unconscious, working of the curiosity-wonder 
process — the step, in short, that seems to come as an inspiration — is 
the transitional one between ascending and descending*. What could 
therefore be more natural than to oppose the relations in (5) (due to 
the instinctive process) to those in (3) or (4) (due to ordinary conscious 
reasoning) ; and, as the latter represent deduction, to say that the 
former represents induction f ? 

* See above, p. 258. Cf. also pp. 222, 247. 

f Cf. K. Richmond: 'The deductive process is the lower process, because 
there is nothing creative about it. ... I am here impelled to rush in where the framers 
of deiinitions have feared to tread, and to assert that pure inductive thought is, 
simply, intuitive thought, or superconscious thought. It is not "the method of 
reasoning from particulars to generals" as my dictionary puts it; that is the 
deductive process following, to check or confirm, the first inductive leap.' {Loc. 
cit. pp. 221, 222.) 



264 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 14. 4 

If our reasoner, Jones, seeks a connexion between E^ and E^ in 
the most general case (where neither E^ nor E^ is directly or indirectly 
derived from the other) *, and if the instinctive curiosity-wonder 
process gives him the highest connecting essence Ejj^ as an inspiration, 
the rest of the connexion — from E^ to E^^ and from E^^ to E^ — is 
made by mere deductive reasoning, as illustrated in Fig. lo on p. 178. 
This deductive reasoning must, as we said, be performed and that is 
why the second period of conscious thought is required. 'All that we 
can hope from these inspirations ' — 3S^'s sudden invasion of conscious- 
ness — ' which are the fruits of unconscious work, is to obtain points of 
departure for such calculations.' | Moreover, if Jones' inspiration, of 
which the essence, pro hac vice, is E^ , and which he afterwards takes 
for his hypothesis I , and connects by deductive reasoning with E^ 
and E^, is outside that portion of the complete endarchy of science 
which has yet been discovered, while the terminal essences E^ and E^ 
are inside it, Jones' connexion of E^ to E^ through Ejj^ not only 
extends his own scientific endarchy, but discovers a fresh portion of 
the endarchy of science. 

§ 5. An Illustration and a Digression. 

This process may be illustrated by a simple example. Professor 
R. W. Wood of Baltimore noticed the fact, till then unknown to 
science, that when heat was applied to a pellet of sodium inside a 

* The words in brackets are, of course, equivalent to saying that E^ and Ez 
do not belong to the same simple fact (or are not in the same direct line, E E^j 
Efeifc, ... Et,fc,...fcp 'E-k^ki...k,kp+^ •••) of the endarchy of science. 

f Poincare, loc. cit. p. 62. The whole paragraph is worth quoting because of 
its insistence on the disorderly character of purely involuntary thought — a point 
to which we referred on p. 220 above and to which we shall shortly return — and 
on the consequent need for (willed) reasoning during the second period of conscious 
thought that we are now considering. The paragraph reads : ' It never happens 
that unconscious work ' (involuntary thinking) ' supplies ready-made the result of 
a lengthy calculation in which we have only to apply fixed rules. It might be 
supposed that the subliminal ego, purely automatic as it is, was peculiarly fitted 
for this kind of work, which is, in a sense, exclusively mechanical. It would seem 
that, by thinking overnight of the factors of a multiplication sum, we might hope 
to find the product ready-made for us on waking; or, again, that an algebraical 
calculation, for instance, or a verification could be made unconsciously. Observa- 
tion proves that such is by no means the case. All that we can hope from these 
inspirations, which are the fruits of unconscious work, is to obtain points of 
departure for such calculations. As for the calculations themselves, they must 
be made in the second period of conscious work which follows the inspiration, and 
in which the results of the inspiration are verified and the consequences deduced. 
The rules of these calculations are strict and complicated; they demand discipline, 
attention, will, and consequently consciousness. In the subliminal ego, on the 
contrary, there reigns what I would call liberty, if one could give this name to 
the mere absence of discipline and to disorder born of chance. Only this very 
disorder permits of unexpected couplings.' % Cf. p. 260 above. 



II. 14. 5 REASONING 265 

glass bulb from which the air had been exhausted, a brilliantly coloured 
film formed on the inside of the glass; and that the colours changed 
when the film was heated or cooled. How were these colours to be 
explained? Or, how was a connexion to be made in the (incomplete) 
endarchy of science between the (fact of the) cause and the (fact of 
the) effect? The connexion was made by first abstracting from the 
whole fact of the sodium pellet. A, whatever its shape or size, the 
particular essence, E^, of its being a metal known to science; then 
abstracting from the whole fact of a many coloured film, Z, whatever 
its size or colour, the particular essence, E^, of the measure of its 
absorption of the electromagnetic waves that constitute light varying 
with the length of the waves and so with the colour of the light ; then, 
still in the first period of conscious thought, concentrating attention 
on E^ and on E^; then receiving an inspiration (of which the pro hac 
vice essence was E^^) that the coloured film was composed of an 
immense number of minute spheres of sodium that were piled on top 
of each other as the sodium vapour, produced by heating the pellet, 
condensed in tiny drops on the cold surface of the bulb, and that 
such a film would give rise to the colours and changes of colour 
observed — thus inductively connecting E^ with E^ — ; and, finally, a 
second and somewhat prolonged period of conscious thought, in which 
this inspiration was taken as a hypothesis* and which was then 
occupied in making, by deductive reasoning, an endarchy of science 
path, not only between E^ and E^^ (which in this case was very 
simple), but also between Kj^f and E^ (which was not quite so easy) f. 
It would not be difficult to find many more examples of the way 
in which the connexion between the terminal essences (E^ and E^), 
in the most general case of reasoning, is formed by an inspiration 
— the involuntary invasion of consciousness by an idea, lE^, of 
the highest essence, Ej^ — followed by deductive reasoning to connect 

* Cf. p. 260 above. 

f To make the connexion between E^ and E^, it was only necessary to verify- 
that sodium vapour, in a vacuum, would condense in round drops, layer upon 
layer; but to make the connexion between Ej„ and Ez, it was necessary to calculate 
the coefficient of absorption of a medium made up of numbers of small metal 
spheres and to shew (i) that this coefficient varied with the wave length of the 
light, (2) that it was not the same as of the solid metal (for otherwise the film 
would have been throughout of the same colour as a thin film of metallic sodium, 
which was not the case), and (3) that it varied with the amount of metal per unit 
volume, thus altering as the film was heated or cooled. These experimental 
comparisons of the deductions from the hpothesis, E^, with the actual films 
observed, may be described as ' action on the hypothesis E^, with a view to its 
verification.' The calculations, and the whole reasoning, are given in two papers 
on 'Metallic Films' by the present writer (Garnett, Phil. Trans. Vol. 203 (1904), 
pp. 385-420 and Vol. 205 (1905), pp. 237-288). 



266 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 14. 5 

this highest essence with the terminal essences. Mr Kenneth Richmond 
finds that children in school can better understand deductive reasoning 
when it is thus used to follow up and verify an induction, inspiration 
or guess, than when it is taught as the only process*. Perhaps the 
reason is that the first period of conscious thought, and the operation 
of the curiosity-wonder instinct, increase excitement in E^ and E^ 
and their neurographic connexions, and so make them and their 
connexions into deeper and more active interest-systems than are 
generally excited by problems in school lessons. But whether this 
explanation is correct or not, we do well to notice Mr Richmond's 
observation; for we have seenf reason to assume, pending further 
evidence on the subject, that anything that makes for the practice 
of deductive reasoning or other hard thinking increases the thinker's 
'general ability,' or ' g,' and is therefore of very great importance in 
education. 

§ 6. ^ Personal Endarchy facilitates Reasoning. 

Returning to the argument interrupted by the preceding section, 
we remark that a personal endarchy which corresponds, as nearly as 
the conditions of human life permit, to a perfectly integrated mind|, 
is not only in large measure the product of reasoning, but facilitates 
further reasoning. For the more completely Jones' neurograms, A 
and Z, for the facts A and Z of which he seeks to discover or reason 
out the connexion, are already connected in his neurography by a 
chain of elements that correspond, element for element, with the 
chain of fact-elements or essences which connect an essence E^ of A 
to an essence E^ of Z in the endarchy of science, the less effort will 
he have to make to complete his connexion between A and Z according 
to the endarchy of science; and this is true, whether he completes his 
connexion by reasoning it out for the first time, as illustrated in Fig. lo 
on p. 178, or by verifying an apparently spontaneous inspiration. 

The facilitation of Jones' further reasoning by that part of his 
neurography which already corresponds to part of the endarchy of 
science, is not to be measured simply by the extent of the correspond- 
ence, meaning thereby the number of connected essences in the 
endarchy of science that are represented by correspondingly connected 
elements in Jones' personal endarchy. It depends on the region 
of the correspondence as well as upon its extent. That is to say, if 
the reasoning which Jones has mostly to perform is concerned with 
the connexion of essences belonging to a particular region of the 
* Loc. cit. p. 226. f See above, p. 138. % See above, p. 244. 



II. 14. 6 REASONING 267 

endarchy of science, it will most help him if his neurography corre- 
sponds to that region*, rather than to some other. And, other things 
being equal, the more central the region to which part of his neuro- 
graphy corresponds, the more this correspondence will assist his further 
reasoning. We may combine the statements in the last two sentences 
by saying that the more general any particular group of connected 
essences in the endarchy of science is going to be in Jones' future 
experience, the more will his future reasoning be facilitated by 
correspondence between that group of essences and a group of 
similarly connected elements in his neurography. We may notice 
again t that the more abstract — the more central in the endarchy 
of science — an essence is, the more general it will be in the world of 
experience; and therefore, other things being equal, in Jones' personal 
experience. Hence the special importance, in the interest of Jones' 
future reasoning, of correspondence between his personal neurography 
and the more abstract portions of the region of the endarchy of science 
with which his experience will be concerned J . Hence also, in particular, 
the importance of understanding the principles that underly one's 
daily practice. 

Important as is the extent and region of the endarchy of science 
for which Jones has corresponding neurograms in his personal 
endarchy, it would be hard to say whether the intimate connexion 
of the rest of his neurography to his scientific endarchy was not even 
more important in rendering his reasoning easier. If, for example, 
Jones wants a connexion between his neurograms A and Z, and if 
elements E^ and E^ of A and Z respectively already form part of his 
scientific endarchy, he will find the path of connexion that he seeks 
already completed in his scientific endarchy. And if Jones' scientific 
endarchy be not wide enough to include both E^ and E^ within its 
borders, yet their inclusion in neighbouring connected portions of his 
neurography will lessen the amount of new reasoning required to 
complete their connexion to each other through his scientific endarchy. 

* The 'subject' or 'special subject' referred to on pp. 241, 243. 

f See above, pp. 199 and 215. 

J See above, p. 215. Cf. also W. James' observation, quoted above (in footnote 
* on p. 187), that the extracted essences or other facts are 'more general than the 
concretes, and the connections they may have are, therefore, more familiar to us, 
having been more often met in our experience.' {Loc. cit. Vol. ii, p. 342.) They 
are on this account more readily available for building new paths by reasoning. 
For example, 'Think of heat as motion, and whatever is tn.:e of motion will be 
true of heat; but we have had a hundred experiences of motion for every one of 
heat. Think of the rays passing through this lens as bending towards the perpen- 
dicular, and you substitute for the comparatively unfamiliar lens the very familiar 
notion of a particular change in direction of a line, of which notion every day 
brings us countless examples.' (W. James, loc. cit. Vol. 11, p. 342.) 



268 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 14. 6 

The new paths, made by this reasoning, will, moreover, enlarge Jones' 
scientific endarchy. 

Thus it is that the correspondence between a person's neurography 
and the endarchy of science — a correspondence that is in large measure 
due to reasoning — facilitates further reasoning. It is indeed a function 
of reasoned thought, not merely to resolve a unipolar or bipolar 
conflict for the time being, but to leave a neurographic path of 
connexion that will prevent the same conflict from occurring again. 
In short, it is one of the objects of reasoning so to inter-connect 
neurographic elements that the making of further paths by reasoning 
shall, as far as possible, become unnecessary. 

§ 7. Will, the principal factor in developing Single Wide Interests. 

The reasoning that helps to organise a personal endarchy on the 
lines of the endarchy of science, and is then helped by the personal 
endarchy so organised, results from the reasoner's effort to think out 
the connexion that exists between two facts, A and Z, in the world of 
experience ; or, as we have repeatedly put it, to connect his neurograms 
A and Z according to the connexion between A and Z in the endarchy 
of science. But why does he make the original effort? To resolve a 
conflict is the answer we have already* given to this question; and 
we have gone a step further back to distinguish these conflicts accord- 
ing as they originate in the curiosity-wonder process or are due to 
the operation of other instincts or interests — especially, as we may 
now add, purposes f . In particular, a purpose to organise our thought 
in the manner described in Chapter 12 1, may have a profound effect 
upon the development of our neurographies. But whatever cause, 
outside or inside the reasoner's brain, may make him want to make 
the effort required for reasoning in each particular case, without the 
intervention of his Will there is no effort and consequently no reasoning 
— not even in the case where an unconsciously performed induction 
forms part of the reasoning ; for even then, as Poincare says, voluntary 
efforts are needed to 'set the unconscious machine in motion,' § and 
effortful deductive reasoning is subsequently required to verify the 
results of the inspiration |l. Indeed, the scientific organisation of 

* See above, pp. 141 and 162. 

t See above, pp. 176, 177. The former cause — curiosity-wonder- — is, we said, to 
be identified with Professor Whitehead's 'theoretical source' of science; while the 
latter cause — all other instincts and interest (among which purposes are especially 
important) — may be grouped together and identified with Professor Whitehead's 
'practical source' of science. % See especially pp. 243, 244. 

§ Loc. cit. p. 56. The passage is quoted in full in footnote f on p. 256 above. 

II See above, pp. 259, 260. 



II. 14. 7 REASONING 269 

thought, by the creation or discovery of the endarchy of science and 
by the formation of personal endarchies of neurograms which corre- 
spond as closely as possible with the endarchy of science, is in the main 
a voluntary process*. 

But the Will that plays so important a part in the organisation 
of Jones' personal endarchy, so as to make it correspond as far as 
possible with the endarchy of science, and in other respects conform 
to our description f of the tidy and (so far as the conditions of human 
life permit) perfectly integrated mind, may not be Jones' Will alone. 
For, in its early stages, this organisation is commonly directed by 
the spoken or written word of a teacher who presents knowledge 
ready organised on the lines of the (incomplete |) endarchy of science. 
But the best teaching is of little use without a voluntary effort of 
attention on the part of those who are taught. Dr McDougall's 
experiment § of learning nonsense syllables confirms this fact, already 
so familiar to every educator. 

We may here observe that teaching which is to produce a single 
endarchy of neurograms, corresponding as closely as possible to the 
endarchy of science, ought not to consist of instruction in several 
separate subjects by teachers each of whom is working independently 

* It may be well to recall in this connexion some points on which we have 
already touched. First then we have noted (on p. 220) Professor Whitehead's 
insistence 'on the radically untidy, ill-adjusted character of the fields of actual 
experience from which science starts.' Its 'most obvious aspect'. ..'is its disorderly 
character. It is for each person a continuum, fragmentary, and with elements not 
clearly differentiated.' (Loc. cit. p. no.) 

Then we have pointed out, in footnote f on p. 264, how Poincare insists on 
the 'disorder' that characterises involuntary thinking, pure and simple. 'Only 
this very disorder permits of unexpected couplings' that may be most valuable 
in the organisation of thought if worked out and verified by voluntary thinking. 

We have also quoted, on p. 117, Mr Burt's conclusion that 'high intelligence' 
— or, as we said, high ' g' — ' seems to mean high capacity for continually systematis- 
ing mental behaviour by forming new psycho-physical co-ordinations, older 
co-ordinations being retained, so that newer co-ordinations bring with them 
increased complexity and incessant change. In such progressively integrative 
actions of the mind the efficient and directive agent is attentive consciousness.' 

On p. 100 we quoted from Dr McDougall a passage which continues as follows : 
'Experiments of this class, then, are bringing home to us the magnitude of the 
influence of conation (volition) as compared with mere temporal contiguity or 
succession. Mental process is effective in establishing associations (and indeed in 
all other ways) in proportion as it involves strong conation, strong desire or 
volition ; a fact which implies on the neural side effective concentration of psycho- 
physical energy' — Will, in fact — 'in proportion to the strength of the conation.' 
{American Journal of Insanity, Vol. LXix (1913), p. 869.) 

Finally we saw, on p. 240, how Mr Fluegel also regards the mechanism of the 
subsumption of lower purposes under higher purposes, and ultimately under the 
highest purpose of all, as consisting, at any rate to some extent, in a logical, 
rational, or voluntary process. 

t On pp. 243, 244 above and preceding pages. 

{ See above, p. 199, footnote §. § See above, p. 100, footnote f. 



270 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 14. 7 

of his colleagues*. It is, on the contrary, desirable that the education 
of any particular pupil should be in the hands of the smallest possible 
number of teachers who are capable of presenting those portions of 
the endarchy of science with which the pupil's personal endarchy has 
next to be made to correspond, A pupil's teachers should, therefore, 
gradually increase in number as his education advances. And when, 
from time to time, the number is increased, the work of teaching him 
should not be equally divided between them. For we have seenf 
how much more efficient in organising thought is effort expended in 
developing a single endarchy, than the same effort expended in pro- 
ducing several separate endarchies. When, therefore, it is no longer 
possible to find one teacher to direct all a pupil's studies, and a second 
teacher must perforce be introduced, the latter should be entrusted 
only with such work as the first is unable to undertake. In like 
manner, when a third teacher has to be added, he should be given as 
small a share as possible. And so on. In short, when pupils have 
advanced beyond the stage when one teacher can be responsible for 
all their school work, they should still spend as large a proportion of 
their time as possible with one form-master, whose teaching should 
be supplemented to the least possible extent by the smallest possible 
number of specialist teachers. And it should be part of the duty of 
this form-master (or 'central teacher') to see that the single wide 
interest-system I, which he is concerned with developing in each of 
his pupils, contains strong purpose-elements at the centre, and that 
these purpose-elements are connected, not only with all the school 
work, but also with the most diverse of the pupils' outside experience §. 
But the wise teacher knows well that his best way of developing such 
an endarchy — or, indeed, of affecting his pupil in any other way — is 
to enlist the help of the pupil's own Will, as well as of his interests 
and instincts, among which curiosity is of special importance in 
building personal endarchies. Thus will the teacher produce most 
effect while he directs his pupil's education, and thus also — especially 
if he can get his pupils to share his purposes for their education — 
will he best ensure its continuance along the same lines after his 
responsibility has ceased. In support of such a purpose every pupil's 

* In this connexion reference should be made to Integral Education (of. John 
Adams, loc. cit. pp. 189-195) : see p. 470 in Appendix A, below. 

f In Chapter 11, § 5, on pp. 211 to 213 above. 

X See above, p. 244. 

§ Cf. above, the first paragraph on p. 244 beginning 'Wide and diverse ex- 
perience ' Cf. also Poincare: 'Among the combinations we choose, the most 

fruitful are often those which are formed of elements borrowed from widely 
separated domains.' {Loc. cit. p. 51.) 



II. 14. 7 REASONING 271 

Will may be expected continually to intervene, analysing his dis- 
orderly impressions of experience and integrating the essences so 
abstracted into simple general facts, and these in turn into laws, 
so as to build up such a personal endarchy as he has purposed: 
perhaps such a one as we described in the last two sections of Chapter 12 
above*. After aU, every pupil, as his education advances, becomes, 
sooner or later, his own chief educator; and, long before that stage 
is reached, he begins to have an increasingly important share in his 
own education. 

And so we come back to the supreme part played by one's own 
Will in organising one's personal endarchy of neurograms. But 
inheritance and environment (or experience) supply the raw 
material f. Moreover, at any intermediate stage of the organisation, 
the neurography itself — representing interests (and especially pur- 
poses) as well as instincts — cooperates with the Will, and with in- 
coming impressions of the environment, in determining the next stage 
of its development J : a development which is of the utmost importance 
to the individual in question. 

* See especially pp. 243, 244. 
f See above, p. 245. 
j See above, p. 246. 



CHAPTER 15 
THE FIFTH LAW 

§ I. The End of a Train of Thought. 

In the preceding pages we have gone on, from the discussion of reflex 
actions, to consider the flow of conscious thought, first when the Will 
does not intervene, and afterwards when it does. We have now to 
ask ourselves how the continuity of the stream of thought is broken; 
or, in other words, how a train of consecutive thought comes to an end. 

Ordinary experience distinguishes three ways in which our thought- 
activities may cease to follow, involuntarily or voluntarily, the 
associations of some single topic. In the first place, some incoming 
sense impression may be sufficiently intense to drain — in accordance 
with our third law — the excitement from those active neurograms 
which correspond to the topic in question. Secondly, the excitement 
may simply diffuse, according to our second law, without exciting 
in the process any system of arcs whose excitement becomes sufficient 
to attract the impulse from the other active neurograms. And, in 
the third place, the excitement may be discharged from the brain, 
in giving rise to bodily movements. Let us briefly consider these 
three processes in the order in which we have named them. 

The interruption of a train of thought by some irrelevant sense- 
impression is familiar to everybody. A flash of lightning, a cry for 
help, or a wasp-sting, will generally suffice to distract one's attention 
from the subject of one's previous thought. But, according to our 
third law, the greater the excitement that accompanies a train of 
consecutive thought, the greater must be the intensity of some 
irrelevant sense-impression in order to interrupt it. Indeed, as we 
have already observed, one's ' absorption may be so deep as not only 
to banish ordinary sensations, but even the severest pain.'* 

Sometimes a train of thought on some uninteresting topic seems 
to become less and less vivid, until finally, and for no apparent reason, 
it ceases altogether. Even when we have several times concentrated 
our attention by an effort of Will, the resulting increase of excitement 
in our neurograms may not suffice to prevent the stream of thought 

* W. James, loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 419, quoted above on p. 82. See the examples 
given by W. James (loc. cit.). 



II. 15. 1 THE FIFTH LAW 273 

from simply drying up, as rivulets dry up in sandy channels when 
the flow of water is not enough. This is an example of the ending of 
a train of thought by diffusion. When it occurs, our conscious thought- 
activities may cease for a while, until set going again by some new 
stimulus; or sleep may supervene. The ending of a train of thought 
by diffusion, implies, as a rule, either that its topic is lacking in 
interest or is unstimulated by voluntary effort; and, in either case, 
that the accompanying excitement is slight. For everybody has 
probably noticed, when trains of thought come to an end in this way, 
how the whole field of consciousness seems narrowly restricted, its 
fringe being reduced to very small dimensions, indicating that the 
number of active neurograms, and consequently the whole excitement 
of the brain, is small; or else how the subject thought of is connected 
with no great interests whose systems, rendered active, may pour in 
new excitement. Tiredness of the thinker, or lack of interest in the 
object of his thought, combined with insufficient ability to com- 
pensate for fatigue and lack of interest by concentrating attention*, 
are then the chief causes for the ending of a train of thought by 
diffusion. 

When a train of thought is ended by interruption or diffusion, 
the excitement is drained into new paths, or else is dissipated, but 
does not leave the brain. The only way in which excitement may 
escape from the brain is by being discharged down the outgoing nerves 
and giving rise to some form of bodily activity |. And this is the 
normal ending of every train of thought. It is, indeed, clear enough 
that trains of thought which end in being interrupted or diffused are 
inconclusive; and that, if all our thinking ended in one or other of 
these ways, it would serve no useful purpose, whether biological, 
sociological or any other. So we repeat that action is the normal end 
of every train of thought ; and this statement we take for our fifth law 
of thought. 

§ 2. The Fifth Law fits Experience. 

It is true that this law does not at first sight appear to fit the 
case of a man who has been puzzling over some problem for a long 

* And so increasing excitement. See below, pp. 281, 282. 

f Cf. W. James: 'The reader will not have forgotten, in the jungle of purely 
inward processes and products through which the last chapters have borne him, 
that the final result of them all must be some form of bodily activity due to the 
escape of the central excitement through outgoing nerves. The whole neural 
organism, it will be remembered, is, physiologically considered, but a machine 
for converting stimuli into reactions; and the intellectual part of our life is knit 
up with but the middle or "central" portion of the machine's operations.' (Loc. 
cit. Vol. II, p. 372.) 

G. E. 18 



274 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 15. 2 

time, when suddenly the desired solution comes into his mind*. He 
has thought it out. His feeling of effort, and the unpleasant feeling 
by which 'instinctive striving is always accompanied,' f give way to 
a feeling of aesthetic satisfaction so soon as the inspiration has been 
completely understood J. This change of feeling is, as we saw§, 
almost certainly due to a visceral change ; and the nervous excitement, 
which was the physiological correlative of the train of thought now 
ended, has been discharged in producing this visceral change — an 
internal bodily movement — just as, in the normal case, it is discharged 
down the pyramidal tract in producing the external bodily movement 
that the word 'action' in our fifth law commonly denotes. Often 
both internal and external movements end a train of thought; as 
when the happy recipient of a bright idea not only experiences a very 
great change of feeling but also indulges in weird behaviour. When, 
for example, the idea of specific gravity came to Archimedes in his 
bath, and solved his problem about the composition of the king's 
crown, he did not wait to dress, but rushed through the streets of 
Syracuse shouting, evprjKaW. If, therefore, we were to extend the 
meaning of the word 'action' in our fifth law so as to include all 
bodily movements, visceral as well as skeletal, the case in which a 
train of thought ends in a change of feeling ^ would no longer be an 
exception to our law. We must remember, too, that ' from the physio- 
logical point of view a gesture, an expression of the brow, or an 
expulsion of the breath are movements as much as an act of locomotion 

* In the case here supposed there is no interval between 'the first period of 
conscious thought' and the 'inspiration' (cf. above, pp. 256, 257). Or else it is 
such a case as Poincare describes in the words: 'Often when a man is working 
at a difficult question, he accomplishes nothing the first time he sets to work. 
Then he takes more or less of a rest, and sits down again at his table. During 
the first half-hour he still finds nothing, and then all at once the decisive idea 
presents itself to his mind.'...' It is... probable that the rest was occupied with 
unconscious work.' (Loc. cit. p. 55.) 

t See footnote J on p. 248 above. The instinct here in question is, of course, 
curiosity. 

I That is to say — if again E^, is presented by the inspiration and the problem 
was to connect E^ to Ez — so soon as the connexion between E^ and E^ through 
Eif has been completed according to the endarchy of science. 

§ On p. 53 above. 

!l Cf. footnote § on p. 248 above. 

^ W. McDougall, in one place, appears to make this the normal case, for he 
writes: 'Mental activity or thinking thus tends to progress in cycles; each cycle 
begins with knowing, which excites feeling and striving; the striving results in 
a new knowing, which satisfies the striving; and so the cycle reaches its natural 
termination in a feeling of satisfaction.' (Psychology, p. 62.) Elsewhere, however, 
he supports William James' view that (external) bodily movement — 'action' as 
commonly understood — is the normal ending to every train of thought. For 
example he writes: 'All mental activity... normally issues in bodily movement.' 
(Psychology, p. 105.) 



II. 15. 2 THE FIFTH LAW 275 

is. A king's breath slays as well as an assassin's blow.'* Indeed, 
from the standpoint of our fifth law, talking f is so perfect a substitute 
for other forms of action that it is unfortunately apt to take their 
place in the circumstances of a fire or of a shipwreck or even of a 
national crisis when its inferiority to them is altogether obvious. 

We have next to see that, with the meaning of 'action' thus 
extended, our fifth law does fit available experience, and is therefore 
true. 

In the first place, it is consistent with the theory of natural 
selection. For, in the earlier stages of the struggle for existence, the 
fittest to survive would be those whose primitive thought promptly 
led to such action as was best adapted to preserve the individual or 
the species. In those early times, at all events, thinking was always 
for the sake of doing; and its value was measurable by its fruits in 
action. Individuals, or species, whose thinking led to the most effective 
action for securing prey, for avoiding being preyed upon, and for 
reproducing their kind, were most likely to survive. This then was 
the kind of thinking — a kind that promptly issued in appropriate 
action — that would be developed by natural selection | . 

Then again the authorities whose relevant experience is greatest — 
at least among English-speaking people — summarise their experience 
in conformity with our fifth law. Thus, William James holds that 
' Movement is the natural immediate effect of feeling ' — that is, of thought- 
activities of whatever kind§ — 'irrespective of what the quality of the 
feeling may be. It is so in reflex action, it is so in emotional expression, 
it is so in the voluntary life.'\\ In fact, William James' view is that 
every thought-activity tends to lead to immediate action; and that 
it is only the gradual making of new paths, of less resistance than the 
natural or connate paths of motor discharge, that causes our thought- 

* W. James, loc. cit. Vol. 11, pp. 527, 528. W. McDougall also points out that 
to speak is to act, so that the expression in words of a conclusion reached by 
thinking is itself an action that may end the sequence : ' whether or no his words 
are accompanied by other bodily activity, their utterance is in itself a bodily 
activity.' (McDougall, Psychology, p. 109.) 

f Movements of the tongue are 'skeletal,' not 'visceral,' although the food 
controller classed tongues with viscera as offal ! 

X Cf . W. McDougall : ' Regarded from the biological point of view, the function 
of all mental process and mental structure is to preserve and promote the life 
of the race and that of the individual in so far as he subserves the life of the race. 
The life of the race is preserved and promoted by bodily activities.... All mental 
activity, then, normally issues in bodily movement; since only by promoting and 
guiding bodily movement can it fulfil its function.' (Psychology, p. 105.) 

§ He uses the word 'feeling' as equivalent to our 'thought-activity.' This use 
he explains in Vol. i, p. 186 (loc. cit.). 

II Loc. cit. Vol. II, p. 527. The italics are William James'. See also the quotation 
from William James on p. 286 below. 

18—2 



276 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 15. 2 

activities ever to lead anywhere else*. Such new paths, leading to 
further thought more readily than to immediate action, were our 
principal concern when we were lately discussing the organisation of 
thought by the gradual building up of a personal endarchy of neuro- 
grams that should correspond, in large measure, with the endarchy 
of science. 

That Dr McDougall shares William James' view — that ' all mental 
activity... normally issues in bodily movement 'f — we have already 
seen. In another book he writes: 'Every idea tends to find appropriate 
expression in movement, the excitement of every neural system tends 
to issue in motor paths, and whenever ideas are vivid their motor 
tendencies are clearly manifested.' J 

It is not however necessary to take at second hand the experience 
with which our fifth law has to be compared, if we would be satisfied 
of its truth. Everybody can supply further experience of his own, as 
Dr McDougall points out in the passage we have quoted in our last 
footnote. We can all verify that we tend to make every movement 
that we think of hard enough §, or imagine vividly enough; that we 
tend to utter every word that we think of hard enough, or imagine 
vividly enough — indeed, some people yield to the tendency and 
'think aloud'; and, finally, (although this last tendency may become 
less marked than the others as we become more and more conscious 
of our inability adequately to fulfil it) we do tend to realise or reproduce 
every scene or visual object that we think of hard enough, or imagine 
vividly enough. Thus do all images, whether motor, or auditory, or 
even visual, tend to lead to movements. 

This tendency is so obvious and well known in the case of motor 
and auditory images that no more need be said about it. But it is 
necessary to make one or two observations upon the corresponding 
tendency of visual imagery, since the common experience of adults 
furnishes comparatively few examples of it. Among such examples 
we may include those visualisers who never like to think or talk 
without a pencil and paper to illustrate their ideas |1. Much more 

* See, for example, loc. cit. Vol. ii, pp. 581, 559. 

t McDougall, Psychology, p. 105, quoted in footnote % on p. 275 above. 

{ Physiological Psychology, p. 161. He adds, by way of illustration: 'if you 
vividly imagine yourself playing a part in any exciting scene or adventure, a 
debate, a climb, or a fight, each idea will manifest itself in incipient motions, or at 
least tensions of muscles.' 

§ See below, footnote J on p. 286. 

II Engineers and architects often shew this tendency. Perhaps we may also 
reckon as examples of the same tendency, the case of the mathematician who, 
as he calculates and visualises the motion of a spinning top or of an advancing 
wave, is inclined to illustrate the motion with a gesture. 



II. 15. 2 THE FIFTH LAW 277 

obvious, however, are the examples furnished by children. Indeed, 
it would probably be hard to find a normal child who did not delight 
in 'realising' the objects of his visual imagery. He may be content 
to realise or express them in two dimensions, by means of finger and 
sand-tray, pencil and paper, or paints and brushes; but he will probably 
prefer to realise them in three dimensions, by means of wet sand, clay, 
plasticine, wooden or stone 'bricks,' 'meccano,' a wood or metal 
workshop, or even a ' science ' laboratory. This tendency to construct, 
in the flat as in the solid, the objects that one sees in imagination, 
may perhaps be identified with that ' instinct of construction ' which, 
in his book on Social Psychology*, Dr McDougall includes among five 
instincts whose emotions are less distinctive than those of the seven 
primary instincts described in that workf . 

Whenever the tendency for a thought-activity — say ^ — to result 
in bodily movement is actually fulfilled, the corresponding neurogram, 
.4, is deepened by the 'circular nervous process' already! described. 
For the excitement then spreads from A — or from some kinaesthetic 
area neurones that are included in, or connected with, A — to motor 
centres, whence it travels down the pyramidal tract and ultimately 
reaches muscles, whose contraction stimulates afferent neurones, from 
which the same kinaesthetic area neurones as before are in turn 
stimulated, thus completing the cycle. The cycle may be repeated 
any number of times. The kinaesthetic arcs in question are thus 
deepened. It follows from the corollary to our third law that A is 
the more likely to attract the impulse on any future occasion of 
involuntary thinking, and thus to be deepened, not only in its 
kinaesthetic portion or connexions, but throughout its whole extent. 
For example, a schoolboy, who is required to prepare a passage in a 
foreign language so as to be able to translate it in class, will remember 
the translation better if, when he has prepared it, he reads it over 
aloud, or, better still, if he writes it out : the reading aloud, or the 
writing out, deepens his neurograms of his English version in the 
manner just described. In the same way, children in elementary 
schools sometimes deepen their neurograms by repeating aloud in 
chorus statements they are asked to remember. 

* Loc. cit. p. 88. 

I See above, p. 51. Dr McDougall tells me (April, 1920) that he did not mean 
to imply that the five were less important than the seven. W. James {loc. cit. 
Vol. II, p. 426) also includes ' Constructiveness ' in a list of instincts; but he givCvS 
no evidence that it satisfies the definition of an instinct, that we have quoted 
from Dr McDougall on p. 52 above, by including cognitive and affective as well 
as conative elements. 

X See above, p. 59. 



278 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 15. 2 

It is, however, possible that, when A is thought of, the excite- 
ment in A may be insufficient to spread through the Rolandic 
(kinaesthetic) cortex and so to produce movement, even though it 
suffices to bring ^ to the focus of consciousness. In that case an effort 
of Will may be necessary to increase the excitement in A — or in its 
kinaesthetic portion or connexions — before the tendency of ^ to be 
followed by a bodily movement can be fulfilled. In such a case, the 
fulfilment of the tendency involves the deepening of A, not only by 
the 'circular nervous process' described in the preceding paragraph, 
but also by the initial effort of Will. 

§ 3. Pedagogic Corollaries. 

The deepening of a neurogram that results when the corresponding 
thought-activity leads to bodily movement has pedagogic consequences 
of great importance*. 

As we have just reminded ourselves, the deepening of a neurogram 
means that the corresponding fact is better remembered. It is also 
more likely to become connected with other facts and so to become 
interesting. That is why, in some schools, practical work may be of 
so much value in forming a centre of interest to which all the school 
studies may be connected. Especially in schools where the general 
ability {'g') of the children is low, and where they may therefore be 
unable by an effort of Will to concentrate their attention sufficiently 
for the learning of their lessons, the creation by practical work of an 
interest-system from whose activity the neurograms of otherwise 
uninteresting facts may derive excitement +, is likely to serve a highly 
useful purpose. 

In some cases, the deep interest-system which handwork is capable 
of creating may be made deeper still by choosing handwork that is 
closely connected with the pupils' already existing interests (for 
example, in their present or future occupations), and this is especially 
true if those other interests are rich in emotional elements. This 
principle is employed in many Junior Technical Schools §, and in 
some 'part-time' (day or evening) classes intended for pupils whose 
ordinary employment occupies the greater part of their time. But, 
in other cases, this further deepening of the centre of interest created 
by practical work may not be possible. Even so, however, most young 

* Cf. above, pp. 59, 60. 

t It is doubtless for this reason that handwork figures so largely in the cur- 
riculum of most modern schools for mentally defective children. 
X See above, p. 85. 
§ See below. Chapter 23, § 10 and Chapter 24, § 5; especially pp 418, 419. 



II. 15. 3 THE FIFTH LAW 279 

people between twelve and sixteen years of age will readily find an 
adequate central interest in handwork*, especially in handwork com- 
bined with outdoor activities f . 

It is not, of course, only because interest in practical work 
resembles an emotional interest, in tending to deepen the neurograms 
of facts with which it is connected, that practical work of various 
kinds plays so large a part in modern education. Among other 
beneficial effects of practical work in school or college, four may be 
mentioned here. The first is that some facts can best be learnt, or 
perhaps can only be learnt, in a laboratory or workshop : the strength 
and ' feel ' of materials, and the structure of plants or animals are 
examples. The second is that work on the actual things themselves 
serves as a useful check upon the ideas a student may derive from 
thinking only of the abstractions or essences with which science 
mainly deals J. The third is that only by doing things can one learn 
to do them ; and trades may be learnt in some school workshops, even 
as the technique of a physicist or a chemist may be acquired in some 
college laboratories. And the fourth is that, if everybody works with 
his hands at school, manual work will cease — if it has not already 
ceased — to be regarded as undignified. 

Not only, therefore, by deepening neurograms — and so strength- 
ening memory and creating interests — but also in many other ways, 
may practical studies prove beneficial. But overmuch practical work 
may also be injurious in education. If, for example, it be true that 
to increase general abihty {'g') by practice in concentrating attention § 
is one of the objects of education, the very same process that strengthens 
memory and awakens interest in children of low ability, would, if 
applied to able children, destroy their best opportunities for efforts 
of Will and so fail to achieve the object in question. In other words, 
if able children can increase their ability by hard thinking, to make 
the path of learning too easy, whether by overmuch practical work 
or in any other way, is to deprive such children of one of the greatest 
benefits that education can confer. Or again, overmuch practical 
work in school may be harmful by wasting time and energy. Whoever 
can understand and remember what he reads without reading aloud, 
wastes time and energy by pronouncing every word as he reads it. 
So, too, time and energy that might be devoted to the strenuous 

* Cf . Dr G. Kerschensteiner : ' Children do in fact like manual work of the right 
kind.' (Schools and the Nation, p. 121.) 

t See below, pp. 423, 428, where examples are given. 

J Cf. above, pp. 215, 233. 

§ See above, pp. 137, 138 and footnote * on p. 159. 



28o THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 15. 3 

intellectual discipline of mathematics or Latin prose, may easily be 
wasted in mild laboratory work or other handwork. Or, finally, 
freedom and encouragement to give rein to one's tendency to follow 
up every thought-activity by bodily movement, may exercise a more 
subtly injurious influence upon one's thinking; for to give way to 
this tendency is to end one's train of thought there and then in action. 



CHAPTER 16 
CONDUCT 

§ I. Conduct as affected by Neurography. 

We now leave these pedagogic corollaries of our fifth law and proceed 
briefly to consider what effect upon the ending of a train of thought 
will be produced by the single wide interest that we have described*. 
We remind ourselves that every element in the personal endarchyf 
of neurograms that corresponds to such a single wide interest, is linked 
to every other through a central scientific endarchy that corresponds 
as closely as possible with (part of) the endarchy of science ; and that 
the most central, and therefore the deepest, elements in the whole 
personal endarchy correspond to a supreme and dominant purpose, 
in harmony with those of one's neighbours. It is true that a perfect 
single wide interest — coextensive with the whole of the person's 
experience — may not be realisable in practice. But the more nearly 
this ideal is approached, the more nearly will the ends of thought 
be influenced as if it were reached. 

In the first place, then, we have already seen that 'when once 
any considerable interest-system, especially if it be rich in emotional 
elements, has been stimulated, it will tend for some time to reinforce 
the excitement in any neurograms that are connected with it.' % So 
the possession of a single wide interest makes for the reinforcement of 
the excitement accompanying every thought-activity — ^, for example 
— connected with it. But it follows from our third law that the 
greater such intensification of the excitement in the neurogram A, 
the greater also will have to be the excitement of B in order that 
some irrelevant sense-impression, 13, outside the interest in question, 
may interrupt the train of thought by B draining the excitement 
from A and its connexions. Consequently a single wide interest tends 
to prevent trains of thought connected with it from being interrupted 
by irrelevant sense-impressions, or other thought-activities not so 
connected. Moreover, the connexion of A with a single wide interest- 
system will tend to cause the excitement in A to spread towards the 

* See Chapter 12 above, and especially p. 244. 

t See above, p. 231. 

X See above, p. 85. Cf. also pp. 91, 92 above. 



282 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 16. l 

centre of that interest-system*. It will thus oppose any tendency 
for any train of thought to end with ^, through diffusion from A. 
And, in general, the greater the excitement of A, the less hkely is it 
that any train of thought will end with ^ by diffusion; for, as the 
excitement spreads from A, the more likely will it be to reach some 
other neurogram which, on account of its connexion with an affective- 
conative neurogram, or because it has been also stimulated from 
another source, or for some other reason, is capable of draining the 
impulse to itself and so of starting a new step in the train of thought. 
Indeed, the process of diffusion is most likely to end a train of thought 
when the thinker is sleepy or tired ; when his field of consciousness is 
unusually narrowed, no wide or deep interest-system being active; 
and when, from these and other indications, it seems to him that 
his excitement is least f. So we conclude that the possession of a 
single wide interest tends to prevent trains of thought from being 
ended by interruption or diffusion; and therefore helps to make them 
end in action. 

For another reason also, a single wide interest helps to make its 
possessor's trains of thought end in action. For, whichever of his 
neurograms are excited while he thinks, the excitement tends to flow 
from them towards the centre of his interest-system |, where it excites 
his purpose-neurograms§. But these purpose-neurograms influence 
conduct — action — in a specially high degree ||. They must therefore 
be specially closely connected with paths of motor discharge, so that 
their excitement must tend, not only to influence action, but to initiate 
it. Again, a single wide interest makes for effectiveness and con- 
sistency. For we have already^ seen that a wide and deep future- 
interest-system tends to exert a peculiarly powerful influence upon 
thought and conduct : an influence that is much stronger than would 
be exercised by any other interest-system equally wide and deep. 
But a single wide interest-system, as we have defined it, is no less 
than the whole neurography organised into a single endarchy that is 
centred in its possessor's purpose-neurograms. So it is fair to say that 
a 'single wide interest' is a future interest so wide and deep as to 
include all other interests within its organisation. And it is evident 
that a neurography which ensures that the same system of purpose- 
neurograms will influence every action (that is not reflex or habitual **) 

* Cf. above, p. 244. f Cf. above, p. 273. 

J See above, pp. 94, 208 and 244. § See above, pp. 238 and 243. 

II See above, Chapter 8, § 3 (pp. 152 e/. seq.). 
Tf See above. Chapter 8, § 3 and especially p. 154. 
** Cf. p. 154 above. 



II. 16. 1 CONDUCT . 283 

must result in every one of the person's activities being consistent with 
his supreme purpose, and therefore with each other; and actions that 
thus cooperate to fulfil a common purpose are necessarily more 
effective than actions that have nothing in common, and so often 
undo each other. It follows that the possession of a 'single wide 
interest' makes for conduct that is consistent and for action that is 
effective. 

We have just spoken of actions or conduct 'being consistent with' 
a single supreme purpose, as equivalent to their 'cooperating to fulfil' 
that purpose. And indeed every action taken by anybody — say, Jones 
— either helps or obstructs the fulfilment of any one of his separate 
purposes, if he possesses several separate purposes; but, if he has one 
supreme purpose to which all the rest are subordinate, his every action 
makes for or against the fulfilment of that purpose. There is no 
middle course; no neutrality is possible. For the consequences of 
every action stretch forward into future time, and Jones cannot help 
thinking of some of these consequences. His corresponding neuro- 
grams, say Q, either form part of the system, P, to which any one 
of his purpose neurograms belongs; or they do not. When he con- 
templates another action, the excitement that accompanies his ideas 
of its consequences in the same future time is attracted both by Q 
and by P. If Q is part of P, it helps P to make the consequences of 
the new action also part of P. But if Q has no connexion with P, 
its attraction is in conflict, however feeble, with that of P. It follows 
that an action that is consistent with a given purpose helps, however 
feebly, to fulfil that purpose; and that an action not consistent with 
the purpose hinders its fulfilment. 

Suppose now that Jones has a single wide interest with a central 
supreme purpose of which the most central essence is E. Every one 
of his actions will tend to be consistent with the endarchy of purposes, 
P, of which E is the centre; and, unless his Will prevents it from 
being so in any particular case, his every action will actually be 
consistent with P ; or, in other words, his neurograms for every action 
and its consequences will fit harmoniously into his personal endarchy 
of which E is the centre. But now suppose that his single wide interest 
is not quite perfect, so that there is some rival purpose, D, at work 
within him. For example, P may represent the good that Jones would 
do and D the evil that sometimes he does; and P may have been built 
up in the manner described above on p. 240, so that all his lower 
purposes — except, for the moment, D — are included in P and sub- 
ordinated to E; while D is an inheritance from a long line of animal 



284 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 16. i 

and uncivilised human ancestors. Then there is a continual conflict 
between P and D — the conflict so perfectly described by St Paul* 
and so familiar to everybody — to determine whether each new action 
shall conform to the one or the other. And Jones will know in each 
case whether his higher purpose, P, which St Paul f identified with 
Jones himself I, or his lower tendency, D, has won, by the feeling that 
he will probably describe as due to an approving or a disapproving 
conscience. 

What is the feeling that conscience approves of an action con- 
templated or completed? If we have correctly described § the working 
of the curiosity-wonder process, Jones must experience a feeling of 
aesthetic satisfaction ||, whenever he first becomes conscious that the 
consequences of an action fit harmoniously ^ into the system of his 
central purpose. But whenever the anticipated results of an action 
are in harmony with the results that it is one's supreme purpose to 
achieve, one's conscience will approve of that action, provided only 
that it approves of the supreme purpose in question. Now Jones' 
conscience will approve of a supreme purpose formed, and related to 
truth as he conceives it, in the manner described in Chapter 12, § 4 : 
a purpose to achieve ' the highest good of all,' or rather ' the highest 
end of which the mind in question could conceive.' This highest good, 
or summum bonum, is the highest good one knows; or, preserving the 
distinction already** made, it is the 'fact' of the highest good, rather 
than the highest good 'in itself.' As a rule, the incomplete fact of the 
highest good — the fact as then known or generally accepted f f — is that 
the performance of which conscience will approve as a supreme 
purpose. And yet, as we have already J J remarked in another con- 
nexion, the highest good aimed at by some exceptional person — a 
prophet, if you like, or a conscientious objector to something that 
most men approve — may be nearer to the 'complete fact' of the 
highest good than is the incomplete fact that is generally accepted. 

If then one's supreme purpose is to realise the highest good of 
which one can conceive, conscience will approve it, whether it con- 

* Epistle to the Romans vii. 15 to 23. 

t ' For the good that I would I do not : but the evil which I would not, that 
I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it.' (Romans vii. 19, 20.) 

X Cf. our observation on p. 146 above, that the self-regarding sentiment tends 
to form part of the future interest and therefore of the interest here called P. 

§ See Chapter 13 above, and especially p. 248. 

II See above, pp. 252, 253. 

^ 'To fit harmoniously into the system' here means 'to help to build it up 
into a maximal endarchy': see above, p. 250. 

** See above, p. 192. f f See above, p. 222. 

XX On p. 223 above. 



II. 16. 1 CONDUCT 285 

forms to the generally accepted (incomplete) fact of the highest good 
or no. Suppose that Jones' conscience approves his supreme purpose. 
It will, as we said, also approve of any action of which the consequences 
that Jones anticipates are part of, or in harmony with, his supreme 
purpose. Are we then to say that Jones has two feelings, one of his 
approving conscience, and the other of his aesthetic satisfaction? 
There is no evidence from introspection that the two feelings are not the 
same. We shall therefore provisionally assume them to be identical. In 
other words, we shall suppose that the feeling that conscience approves 
of an action is a feeling of aesthetic satisfaction due to the harmony 
between one's supreme purpose and the anticipated consequences of 
the action in question. And the feeling that conscience disapproves 
of an action is doubtless a state of mind caused by conflict between 
the supreme purpose and the anticipated consequences of the action. 
That the supreme purpose, where it exists in the form that we have 
described, should stand in this close relation to conscience will not 
surprise us if we remember* how the self -regarding sentiment is 
linked to the purpose in question, and how close the connexion 
between one's self and one's conscience is generally believed to be. 

The effect of a single wide interest, centred (as we sawf) in a 
supreme and dominant purpose, in producing consistent and effective 
conduct, may be increased by the cooperation of the Will. For it 
follows from our third law that if, when he is about to take action, 
Jones increases the excitement of his central purpose neurogram, E, 
by an effort of Will | , his chance of acting consistently with his supreme 
purpose will thereby be increased. 

The possession of a single wide interest not only tends to prevent 
trains of thought from being ended by interruption or diffusion §, 
and makes for consistent and effective action ||, but also, in the third 
place, renders possible prolonged continuous thinking. And prolonged 
trains of reasoned thought often form a necessary preparation for 
action that is to succeed in attaining one's ends. That the hnking up 
of one's whole neurography, to form a single wide interest-system, 
must facilitate prolonged thinking, becomes clear when we reflect 
that, unless low resistance brain paths are available along which 

* See above, p. 146. t 0° P- 244 above. 

X It is probable that this generally happens, but is by no means necessarily 
all that happens, when, before taking any important action, the devout man 
prays to God to serve Whom is his highest purpose. On one occasion, for example, 
Nehemiah wanted to ask a most important favour from King Artaxerxes. 'Then 
the king said unto me. For what dost thou make request? So I prayed to the 
God of heaven. And I said unto the king....' (Nehemiah ii. 4, 5.) 

§ Cf. p. 282 above. || Cf. p. 283 above. 



286 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 16. i 

excitement can continue to flow — and apart from a series of efforts 
of Will to make such new paths — the excitement will normally be dis- 
charged from the brain in giving rise to action. But the linking up 
of the whole neurography into a single system, provides low resistance 
paths by which the excitement can pass from any neurogram to any 
other ; and, were it possible for the whole neurography to form a single 
maximal endarchy, excitement would flow involuntarily from any 
element — except only the most central element — towards the centre 
of the endarchy. The possession of a single wide interest thus facilitates 
prolonged continuous thinking * : indeed, we have already f seen that 
it facilitates reasoning, which is a particular case of the more general 
conclusion just reached J. 

On the other hand, the man whose neurography is made up of 
several separate, and therefore small, interest-systems, cannot long 
continue the same train of thought without much effort of Will. He 
therefore tends to allow his thought to pass over quickly into action. 
He is the so-called 'practical' man, who, without reasoning about 
them, simply 'practises the errors of his forefathers.' § But the truly 
practical man is he who, while acting automatically in as many as 
possible of the unimportant affairs of everyday life ||, will think out 
an important course of action to its conclusion before he embarks 
upon it. 

* Cf. W. James: 'sustained attention is the easier, the richer in acquisitions... 
the mind.' {Loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 423.) f In Chapter 14, §6, above. 

t That the possessor of a single wide interest will not be under the same 
obligation as the man with several small separate interests to react promptly, 
and without much thought, to the stimuli that reach his brain, was noted by 
William James : ' The reason why that doctrine ' — that every idea tends to result 
in immediate action — 'is not a self evident tnath is that we have so many ideas 
which do not result in action. But it will be seen that in every such case, without 
exception, that is because other ideas simultaneously present rob them of their 
impulsive power. But even here, and when a movement is inhibited from com- 
pletely taking place by contrary ideas, it will incipiently take place. To quote 
Lotze once more: "The spectator accompanies the throwing of a billiard ball, or 
the thrust of the swordsman with slight movements of his arm; the untaught 
narrator tells his story with many gesticulations ; the reader while absorbed in the 
perusal of a battle-scene feels a slight tension run through his muscular system, 
keeping time as it were with the actions he is reading of. These results become the 
more marked the more we are absorbed in thinking of the movements which 
suggest them ; they grow fainter exactly in proportion as a complex consciousness, 
under the dominion of a crowd of other representations, withstands the passing over 
of mental contemplation into outward action.'" {Loc. cit. Vol. II, p. 525. Italics, in 
last sentence, mine.) 

§ Professor Sir Arthur Schuster {Presidential Address to the British Association, 
Manchester, 191 5). 

II He must not, for example, stop to think what necktie to put on or what fork 
to use at table, but must do the right thing (in these small matters and others 
like them) automatically — as a matter of habit — without thinking. Cf. W. James, 
loc. cit. Vol. II, pp. 370, 371. 



II. 16. 2 CONDUCT 287 

§ 2. Conduct as affected by Will. 

When, however, the conclusion of his train of thought does come, 
it must be practical. Indeed, not only does every train of thought 
tend to end in action* — a tendency which is increased when the 
thinker possesses a single wide interest f — but every train of thought 
ought to end in action. 

So far as the rest of the world is concerned, it is clear enough that 
the thinker's efforts — whether expended in organising his neuro- 
graphy X so as to faciUtate long continuous thinking, or in making new 
paths in a badly organised neurography — will be wasted unless some 
practical result follows from his thinking : especially from his prolonged 
trains of thought that have cost him most effort. Unless the philo- 
sopher communicates, orally or in writing, the conclusions at which 
he arrives, his philosophy will benefit no one but himself. And the men, 
or women, who only fight battles, or tend wounded, on the stricken 
fields of their own imaginations, are equally useless to the world. In 
short, the interests of human progress — whether towards the goal of 
scientific thought § or any other — demand that all human thinking 
shall have a practical outcome. Otherwise the same ground will have 
to be traversed over and over again by different thinkers. 

It is no less true, if not quite so evident, that the thinker whose 
thought ends without leading to action, is injuring himself. For, in 
the first place, by not following up a train of thought with action, 
he is missing an opportunity of deepening the neurogram || that 
corresponds to his conclusion, and so of saving himself the trouble of 
thinking the same matter out afresh when similar circumstances occur 
again. And besides, since one must act somehow so long as one 
continues to live, whoever will not act according to his thinking must 
either act in opposition to it^, or else apart from it altogether. In 
the former case — if he acts contrary to the principles arrived at by 
his thought — he is sowing the seeds of conflict and of serious inter- 
ference with his future thinking; while in the latter case — if he tries 
to keep his actions separate from his thinking — he will not, of course, 
entirely succeed, since his actions cannot all be performed uncon- 
sciously, but he will build up neurograms and systems of neurograms 
that are altogether separate from the large interest-system by means 

* This is our fifth law. f Cf. above, p. 282. 

X On p. 269 we saw that this was, in the main, a process requiring effort of 
Will. 

§ See above, p. 196. || Cf. p. 277 above. 

^ Like Rousseau, in the following quotation from William James (on p. 288 
below). 



288 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 16. 2 

of which his principal thinking is accomphshed. In either case, 
therefore, he will be developing a less efficient neurography than if 
he were to organise his thought as a single wide interest*. 

Moreover, every time motor results do notf follow a train of 
thought, habit makes it easier for them not to follow when the same 
thought-activities, or some of them, again occupy consciousness. It 
follows, as a practical conclusion, that every human being should — 
in the interests of economy of thought, his own I and other people's — 
make it part of his purpose to end his every train of thought by 
action §; for then his Will must intervene, whenever necessary to 

* As defined on p. 244 and described on the preceding pages. 

f See above, pp. 272, 273. 

I So that the maxim even applies to the hermit who chooses, or to Robinson 
Crusoe who is compelled, to live in isolation from his neighbours (cf. above, p. 227), 

§ Cf. W. James: ' Seize the very first possible opportunity to act on every resolution 

you make, and on every emotional prompting you may experience ' (Loc. cit. 

Vol. I, p. 124.) He adds, in a well-known passage, 'No matter how full a reservoir 
of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one's sentiments may be, if 
one have not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one's character 
may remain entirely unaffected for the better. With mere good intentions, hell 
is proverbially paved. And this is an obvious consequence of the principles we 
have laid down. A "character," as J. S. Mill says, "is a completely fashioned 
will"; and a will [or purpose, as we should say (cf. above, pp. 98, 155)], in the 
sense in which he means it, is an aggregate of tendencies to act in a firm and 
prompt and definite way upon all the principal emergencies of life. A tendency 
to act only becomes effectively ingrained in us in proportion to the uninterrupted 
frequency with which the actions actually occur, and the brain "grows" to their 
use. Every time a resolve or a fine glow of feeling evaporates without bearing 
practical fruit is worse than a chance lost; it works so as positively to hinder 
future resolutions and emotions from taking the normal path of discharge. There 
is no more contemptible type of human character than that of the nerveless 
sentimentalist and dreamer, who spends his life in a weltering sea of sensibility 
and emotion, but who never does a manly concrete deed. Rousseau, inflaming all 
the mothers of France, by his eloquence, to follow Nature and nurse their babies 
themselves, while he sends his own children to the foundling hospital, is the 
classical example of what I mean. But every one of us in his measure, whenever, 
after glowing for an abstractly formulated Good, he practically ignores some 
actual case, among the squalid "other particulars" of which that same Good 
lurks disguised, treads straight on Rousseau's path. All Goods are disguised by 
the vulgarity of their concomitants, in this work-a-day world ; but woe to him 
who can only recognise them when he thinks them in their pure and abstract 
form ! The habit of excessive novel reading and theatre-going will produce true 
monsters in this line. The weeping of a Russian lady over the fictitious personages 
in the play, while her coachman is freezing to death on his seat outside, is the 
sort of thing that everywhere happens on a less glaring scale. Even the habit of 
excessive indulgence in music, for those who are neither performers themselves 
nor musically gifted enough to take it in a purely intellectual way, has probably 
a relaxing effect upon the character. One becomes filled with emotions which 
habitually pass without prompting to any deed, and so the inertly sentimental 
condition is kept up. The remedy would be, never to suffer one's self to have an 
emotion at a concert, without expressing it afterward in some active way. Let 
the expression be the least thing in the world — speaking genially to one's aunt, 
or giving up one's seat in a horse-car, if nothing more heroic offers — but let it not 
fail to take place.' '...if we let our emotions evaporate, they get into a way of 
evaporating.' {Loc. cit. Vol. i, pp. 125, 126.) 



II. 16. 2 CONDUCT 289 

ensure that all his thoughts shall issue in deeds. This maxim must 
especially commend itself to any one who recognises his obligation 
actively to serve his neighbours, or who wants to economise his own 
thought, or who is not content to spend his life as a mere spectator 
of a drama in which he plays no part. It will, in particular, be adopted 
by the Christian who is compelled by the name he bears to aim at 
being a man of action*. Indeed, just as we sawf that the Christian, 
even if like other people he does not attain to the ideal J neurography 
— a perfect single wide interest-system — must at least fulfil the 
principal condition of its possession, in that he thinks of the supreme 
fact, or Truth, in the universe as having the same central essence — 
God — as the highest Good; so now we note that he is bound to fulfil 
this other ideal, of using his Will to make his thinking result in action. 
We conclude by repeating § that action not only tends involuntarily 
to be the end of every train of thought, but that, in the interests both 
of the community to which they belong and of themselves, all men 
should also use their Wills to ensure that every train of thought shall 
end in action. 

§ 3. The Five Laws of Thought. 

All our five laws of thought have now been enunciated. We 
collect them here for more convenient reference. They are : 

1. To every psychosis there corresponds a neurosis (p. 66). 

2. Excitement in any nervous arc tends to spread to every other arc 
that is connected with the first through synapses, the insulation of which 
the excitement in question is intense enough to overcome (p. 69). 

3. Any nervous arc of the higher level, if intensely excited relatively 
to other higher level arcs, tends to drain the impulses from those other 
arcs (p. 79). 

4. Will, measured by the general factor, g, can reinforce the excite- 
ment in any excited system of higher level arcs; and so may cause that 
system to drain the excitement from all other active arcs of the 
higher level (p. 129). 

5. Action is the normal end of every train of thought (p. 273). 

* See below, p. 307. 

•f On p. 241 above. 

X See below, first paragraph of p. 311 and p. 303. 

§ Cf. p. 287 above. 



19 



CHAPTER 17 
CHARACTER 

§ I. Character and Conduct. 

From this account of the five laws of thought and their consequences 
we proceed to consider the foundations of character. In making the 
transition we are not, however, going from one water-tight compart- 
ment of our subject to another. On the contrary, while investigating 
the five laws of thought we have been repeatedly compelled to 
recognise the intimate relation that exists between the trains of 
fugitive thought that flit through anybody's consciousness from 
moment to moment, and, on the other hand, the comparatively 
permanent qualities that characterise the individual in question 
and so may be said to constitute his character. We have now to 
enquire what these qualities are. 

Chemists distinguish different substances by subjecting them to 
the same conditions and noticing the differences in their behaviour. 
So we can hardly find a better means of distinguishing one man from 
another than is afforded by their different reactions to the same 
environment, their different behaviour under the same conditions. 
For, if two men could be found who always did the same thing when 
placed in the same circumstances, any attempt to distinguish between 
them would be as unprofitable as (to take Professor Ostwald's 
example) would have been a discussion, in the days of empirical 
cookery, whether the dough was raised by an elf or by a brownie : for 
practical purposes the two men would be identical. In short, if we 
know how a man will act in any given circumstances, then we know 
that man; so that a man is defined by his actions and characterised 
by his conduct*. Or, as the Sermon on the Mount puts it, 'By their 
fruits ye shall know them.' 

Moreover, action of one kind or another is a necessary condition 
of life. It is true that a man may survive for a while, and even be 
conscious, after he has lost all power of movement; but such a one 
can hardly be called alive, except in a very restricted sense. What is 

* Cf. Herbart, quoted by Adams: 'The tendency... to act in a certain way 
under a given stimulus... [Herbart] regards... as "the first requisite of character.'" 
(Loc. cit. p. 337.) 



n. 17. 1 CHARACTER 291 

it then that defines a man, by determining how he reacts, moment by 
moment, to his ever changing environment? 

Action, according to our fifth law, is the normal end of every 
train of thought ; and, according to our first four laws, a man's thought 
is determined, apart from incoming sense impressions, by his neuro- 
graphy and his Will. It is true that numerous movements take place 
without being preceded by conscious thought; but such reflex and 
instinctive movements are themselves determined, apart from external 
stimuli, by the arrangement of the nervous system, or, in other words, 
by the neurography. Indeed, we know no movements that are not 
wholly determined by the neurography and the Will, along with sense- 
impressions arriving from outside, or else from inside, the body. It 
follows that, given a man's environment to which these incoming 
sense-impressions are due, his reaction will be determined when his 
neurography and his Will are known determinately. At least, we have 
no evidence of any other factors, and therefore do well to accept this 
view as the simplest possible hypothesis that fits all the known facts. 
If then we were right in saying that a man is characterised by his 
reactions to every possible given environment, we resume all the 
available facts by concluding that his character is determined when 
his neurography and his Will are determinately known*. 

Since, however, according to our fourth law, the operation of 
every man's Will is free and unforeseeable, we cannot be sure that 
his Will possesses any quality, except only its strength, that charac- 
terises him. So we assume, as the simplest hypothesis consistent with 
all the known facts, that every person is characterised by no more than 

* It is argued in the text that, if a person's neurography were completely 
known — if, for example, the conductivity of every element of his nervous system 
and of the junction between every pair of adjoining elements were ascertained — 
and if his Will were also completely known, then the nature of his reaction to his 
environment (i.e. the kind of movement that would result from given stimulation 
of his sense-organs, inside as well as outside his body) would also be determined 
in so far as it depends upon himself; but not necessarily in so far as it may be 
affected by psychical or other influences which, like his own Will, can affect the 
conduction of his nervous impulses otherwise than by the stimulation of his sense- 
organs. (Cf. footnote f on p. 150 above.) What then, it may be asked, is to be 
said of such factors as Purpose, which we have seen (in Chapter 8, § 4) to be 
a group factor 'whose generality would appear to extend so widely in character' 
(see above, p. 160), or of Cleverness? Our answer is that the influence of Purpose 
upon conduct is wholly accounted for by the corresponding purpose-neurograms in 
the neurography ; and that Cleverness also affects the growth of the neurography, 
not only during involuntary thinking, but also, as we saw (on p. 188 above), during 
reasoned thought; or, if (as we suggested on p. 122 above) Cleverness be a measure 
of the tendency of nervous excitement to diffuse, and if a positive degree of Clever- 
ness thus marks a general lowness of synaptic resistance. Cleverness, like Purpose- 
fulness, is a property of the neurography. The effect of such factors upon character 
is included in that of Neurography. See also the footnote * on p. 100 above. 

19 — 2, 



292 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 17. i 

(i) his neurography, and (2) the strength of his Will whose measure 
we identified* with g. 

Thus, for example, a historian, because he has a different f neuro- 
graphy from that of a mathematician, has also a different character J. 
But of course it does not follow that the characters of a particular 
mathematician and a particular historian may not resemble each 
other far more closely than those of two specified historians, or of two 
specified mathematicians. 

That a man's character depends in large measure upon his neuro- 
graphy is already widely recognised. Thus 'Herbart maintains that 
instruction supplies the only force that can modify character.' § And 
Dr Morton Prince, after asking 'What makes character?' answers: 
'The phenomena of disintegrated personality suggest that our 
characters are wholly a matter of brain associations and that they 
may be altered for good or ill by anything that will bring about a 
rearrangement of these associations.' || Moreover, 'systems of neuro- 
grams... become a part of the personality. Such complexes and 
systems play an important part by determining mental and bodily 
behaviour. Amongst other things they tend to determine the points 
of view, the attitudes of mind, the individual and social conscience, 
judgment, etc., and, as large systems, may become "sides of one's 
character".'^ 

That the strength of one's Will, ' g,' or the measure of one's general 
ability, is also a factor in one's character may not be so readily 
agreed. But William James implicitly recognised the fact when he 
wrote : ' The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering atten- 
tion, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, 
and will.... An education which should improve this faculty would 
be the education par excellence.'** And indeed there can be no 
doubt that, of two men, one of whom possessed a stronger Will — a 
greater g — than the other, but who were in other respects identical, 
the former would surpass the latter in the performance of a task to 

* See above, p. 129. f Cf. above, pp. 266, 267. 

X Cf . Mr Wells' observation, in Joan and Peter, that a man becomes a different 
man, however slight the difference may be, when for the first time he learns the 
law of gravitation. § Adams, The Evolution of Educational Theory, p. 326. 

II The Dissociation of a Personality. (igo6 edition, p. 299.) 

Tf The Unconscious, p. 535. Dr Prince adds that 'when such complexes have 
strong emotional tones they may set up conflicts leading to the inhibition of 
antagonistic sentiments, and sometimes to the contraction and even disruption 
of the personality. All these phenomena can be induced by the artificial creation 
and organisation of complexes and this principle becomes an important one in 
therapeutics ' — and, as we shall see, in education also. 

** Loc. cit. Vol. I, p. 424. 



II. 17. 1 CHARACTER 293 

the fulfilment of which both were giving every effort. In other words, 
their actions would differ because their ^'s were different. And, since 
we have said that both are characterised by their actions, their 
characters would differ because of the difference in strength of their 
Wills. 

§ 2. Character, Neurography and Will. 

Assuming, then, that character is made up of neurography on the 
one hand, and of (strength of) Will on the other, we have next to 
enquire what sort of neurography and how strong a Will should 
characterise the various individual members of an ideal community*, 
whether municipal, national or international. 

We need not hesitate to answer that the stronger a man's Will is, 
the better, when once his neurography is all that can be desired for 
his own sake and for that of the community of which he forms part: 
it is evidently good for everybody that a man, who wishes to do 
the right thing in any given circumstances, should be able to make 
the strongest effort of Will, so as to overcome the intellectual or 
material obstacles that stand in his way. Moreover, we sawf that 
the effect of a single wide interest J, in producing consistent and 
effective conduct, may be increased by the cooperation of Will. We 
shall presently see that this is the type of neurography that should 
characterise the various members of an ideal community : a conclusion 
from which it follows once more that the stronger the Will of the 
possessor of such a neurography the better. 

In order to satisfy ourselves that every citizen should possess the 
type of neurography which we have described as a single wide 
interest-system, we have next to remind ourselves that this is the type 
of neurography that will not only ensure the avoidance of conflict 
between different members of the community (because they all 
possess supreme purposes that are in harmony with one another §), 
but will also come as near as possible to the fulfilment of the seven 
conditions stated in Chapter 12 above||. In other words, such a 
single wide interest will ensure for every man (i) that he and his neigh- 
bours shall have harmonious purposes, (2) that his conduct shall be 
consistent and effective^, (3) that his thought shall be economical**, 
and (4) that his Will shall tend to be strong f f . Or, putting the matter 

* Cf. p. 232 above. f On p. 285 above. 

X See above, p. 244 and preceding pages, especially pp. 241 to 243. 
§ See p. 244 above. || See pp. 222 to 225. 

•[[ The fourth, fifth and sixth conditions on pp. 224, 225 above. 
** The first, second and third conditions on pp. 222, 223 above. 
f f The seventh condition on p. 225 above. 



294 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 17. 2 

more shortly, if the conduct of a citizen and his neighbours is to be 
mutually consistent and effective, and if their Wills are to be strong, 
their neurographies should be of the kind described in Chapter I2 
as single wide interest-systems*. Moreover, as we remarked above f 
and have just reminded ourselves, every citizen's Will (and the 
stronger it is the better) should cooperate with his single wide interest 
in order to increase, as far as possible, the consistency and efficiency 
of his conduct on the one hand, and, on the other, the strength of his 
Will. 

Now consistent and effective conduct combined with a strong 
Will marks the strong man, the man with a strong character. The 
weak man on the other hand is marked by lack of coherence among 
his interests, and especially among his purposes. He ' has not so much 
as a purpose, but has only purposes '|, as Carlyle said of the weak 
government at Versailles in 1788. Or, as Professor Dejerine and 
Dr Gauckler say of the neurasthenic, ' He does not lack interest, but 
rather he is interested in too many things.' § 

Every member of the ideal community || or Commonwealth should 
therefore possess a strong character, which means a strong Will in 
combination with a single wide interest^. 

* See p. 244 above. f ^^ P- 285. 

I French Revolution, Ashburton Edition, Vol. i, p. loi. 

§ Psychoneuroses and their Treatment by Psychotherapy, translated by Smith 
Ely Jelliffe, M.D., Ph.D. 

II See above, p. 293. 

^ As defined in Chapter 12: see above, p. 244. Reference to Chapter 12 
where the single wide interest was defined will remind (see p. 281 above) the 
reader that a perfect single wide interest will hardly be realised in practice, but 
that, therefore, the more nearly the whole of a person's neurography forms a single 
endarchical system centred in and dominated by deep and closely interconnected 
purpose-neurograms, the more nearly will his thought and conduct resemble that 
which would be due to a single wide interest. It follows (see p. 161 above) that 
a strong character implies not only a large g (a high degree of Will power) but 
also a large p (a high degree of Purposefulness), and therefore also a large /. 

What then, it may be asked, is the relation of Cleverness (measured by c) to 
strength of character? (We confine our attempt to answer this question to a 
footnote because we have seen reason to believe that Cleverness is innate, and in 
the text we are studying character in its bearing upon the aim of education.) 

We have seen (on p. 188 above) that the possession of a high degree of Clever- 
ness will facilitate the discovery of the endarchy of science, and so render it 
possible for people to possess more perfect single wide interests which, as we saw, 
have to correspond, especially as regards their central regions, as closely as possible 
with the endarchy of science. On the other hand, whoever possesses a high degree 
of Cleverness, and therefore, if we have rightly interpreted the nature of Cleverness 
(on p. 122 above), a general tendency to low resistance of the paths of connexion 
between his neurograms, will on that account require a specially deep central 
purpose-system if all his thought and conduct is to be influenced by a supreme 
purpose. (It is perhaps for this reason that persons whose Cleverness is most 
marked, seem — see p. 161 above — to be lacking in Purposefulness.) A high degree 
of Cleverness would therefore seem to be, on the whole, inimical to great strength of 



II. 17. 3 CHARACTER 295 



§ 3. Character in the perfect Commonwealth. 

Let us examine some of the attributes of such a strong character 
as we have just described — a character that is made up of a neuro- 
graphy in the form defined as a single wide interest-system*, and 
of a strong Will that cooperates with the single wide interest in 
guiding thought and conduct. Any one, say Jones, whose character 
is of this kind, will possess an outlook on life which is no less than a 
philosophy ; for his single wide interest-system is an organisation that 
includes the whole of his neurography f, so that the whole world of 
his experience is organised as a single whole; and a view of the 
universe, that shews it organised and shews it whole, is surely a 
philosophy. But Jones' outlook on life is something more than 
a philosophy, for it shews everything focussed in a supreme and 
dominant purpose. This purpose introduces deep emotional elements J 
into his philosophy and transf orrns it into a rehgion : a rehgion that, 
so far as we have yet defined it§, may be either good or bad. This 
result may be expressed by saying that every member of a community, 
in which all men work together as effectively as possible for a common 
end, must be religious; and that the central purpose essence of all 
their religions must be the same. But it does not of course mean 
that they should all accept in its entirety the same system of theology 
or ethics. 

This conclusion merely echoes the teaching of thinkers and seers 
in all ages. We cite only a few recent examples. Frederic Harrison 
thus sums up, in the concluding paragraph of his Autobiographic 

character in the same individual. But a high degree of Cleverness, just because 
it requires a greater effort of Will to direct thought along a particular channel 
so as, for example, to fulfil a distant purpose, may afford practice in concentrating 
attention and so make for increase of g. Thus it may be true that a clever race of 
men will, as one generation succeeds another, develop a higher average degree of 
will-power than might have been the case had it been less clever; and so, as one 
generation succeeds another. Cleverness, like temptations that are due to some 
lower propensity of instinct (see above, pp. 283, 284) or of habit (as we said on p. 179 
above), may make for increase of strength of character among mankind. It is 
easy for a dull man to be good. 

* On p. 244 above. We remind ourselves again of the harmony that exists 
between the central supreme purposes of fellow-citizens who possess ' single wide 
interests.' 

f See above, p. 231. 

X Cf. pp. 152 and 154 above, and Appendix B, §§ 11 and 12, below. 

§ It is because the philosophy is centred in an emotional purpose that we have 
called it a religion. All religions — or at least the principal religions of civilised men 
— fulfil these conditions; and every ethical system that fulfils them might well 
be called a religion without straining the meaning commonly attached to that 
word. 



296 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 17. 3 

Memoirs, 'all that he has even written or spoken during half a 
century ' : 

All our mighty achievements are being hampered and often neutrahsed, 
aU our difficulties are being doubled, and all our moral and social diseases 
are being aggravated by this supreme and dominant fact — that we have 
suffered our rehgion to slide from us and that in e£fect our age has no 
abiding faith in any religion at all. The urgent task of our time is to recover 
a religious faith as a basis of life both personal and social. 

Or again, William James opens his volume of lectures on 'Prag- 
matism' by quoting and approving Mr Chesterton's paradox that 
the most important thing about a man is his philosophy.* Sir 
Stanley Leathes expresses the same opinion in another way when he 
writes, 'Education without religion seems to me impossible.'! And 
Dr William Temple expressed the same view when he said ' The only 
religion worth having is one that colours and governs the whole of 
life and thought.... The only religious education which is going to 
stand the test of an alert criticism conducted by scientifically trained 
minds is not instruction given in certain isolated periods, but a 
presentation of the whole universe of being as' subject to a single 
supreme purpose J. 

So all the members of a community whose conduct is as mutually 
consistent and effective as possible, and who therefore possess single 
wide interests centred in mutually harmonious purposes, must, in the 
first place, be religious. We have, in the second place, to remind 
ourselves that the development of such a neurography is in the main 
a voluntary process § : it is largely a matter of Will. In particular, the 
central elements of Jones' neurography, that correspond to his supreme 
and dominant purpose, cannot be formed and organised at the centre 

* G. K. Chesterton, in the preface to Heretics. The whole passage is worth 
quoting. It reads : ' There are some people — and I am one of them — who think that 
the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of the universe. 
We think that for a landlady considering a lodger it is important to know his 
income, but still more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a 
general about to fight an enemy it is important to know the enemy's numbers, 
but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy. We think the question 
is not whether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the long 
run any thing else affects them.' 

t What is Education? p. 32. 

X Presidential Address to the Education Section (L) of the British Association 
(Newcastle, 1916), p. 11. Dr Temple's words that followed immediately upon 
those quoted, and that formed the concluding words of the passage, were 'filled 
with the Glory of God.' We have completed the passage with other words because, 
for the moment, we are not concerned with the question of the kind of religion 
required by members of an ideal community, but merely with establishing the 
fact that members of a community v/hose conduct is to be mutually consistent 
and effective must be religious. 

§ See above, p. 269. 



II. 17. 3 CHARACTER 



297 



of his neurography without an effort of his Will. This effort of Will, 
that forms Jones' central purpose — that makes, or helps to make, 
his fundamental hypothesis about which he must afterwards reason 
and on which he must act*- in order to verify it — is an act of faith. 
Faith, then, is a matter of Willf. Without an effort of Will there can 
be no faith. Passive acceptance of unverified dogma is not faith at 
all, but creduHty. It is true, of course, as William James has shewn 
in his book on Varieties of Religious Experience, that the fundamental 
hypothesis of which we have spoken — the central purpose of a single 
wide religious interest — may come involuntarily by inspiration J, just 
as happens with scientific discoveries §. But even so, as we said, an 
effort of Will is needed || to act on it, and so to verify it; or, in other 
words, to bring the inspiration into connexion with the remainder of 
one's experience, and, indeed, to organise these fundamental purpose- 
neurograms at the centre of a single wide interest-system. And this 
active faith is always the first step towards religion. 

In the third place, the fact that the central essences of Jones' 
single wide interest constitute a purpose, implies that they are rich 
in future interest. Moreover, the future in which Jones' single wide 
interest, or that of any of his neighbours, is centred should be beyond 
the end of their respective lives. For if not, a time would come in 
the life of each of them when the future upon which his interest had 
been focussed would be future no longer. The consequent change in 
the central elements of his neurography would affect the working of 
all its parts. Indeed, Jones will only possess a single wide interest 
so long as it continues to be centred in a purpose^, and therefore 
in the future. 

* Experiments, made with a view to verifying that the metal fihns described 
on p. 265 did in fact exhibit just those colours and changes of colour which could 
be deduced from the fundamental hypothesis concerning the structure of the 
films, would furnish an example of 'action' of this kind. Compare Stanley Hall's 
observation that ' religion is not theology nor yet ethics, but personal and experi- 
mental.' (Adolescence, Vol. 11, p. 326.) 

f Since ' g' that measures a man's strength of Will is the measure of his general 
ability, we are reminded of St Paul's advice to the Christians in Rome, that each 
of them should be ' measuring himself by the faith which God has allotted to him.' 
(Romans xii. 3; Twentieth Century New Testament version.) Compare also the 
statement ascribed to Dr John R. Mott, the president of the World Christian 
Student Movement, 'Christianity, gentlemen, is a matter of Will.' 

J See above, Chapter 14, § 3. 

§ Cf . James Clerk Maxwell : ' The experimental investigation by which Ampere 
established the law of the mechanical action between electric currents is one of 
the most brilliant achievements of science. The whole theory and experiment 
seems as if it had leaped full grown and full armed from the brain of the "Newton 
of Electricity."' (Electricity and Magnetism, Vol. 11, Chapter iii.) 

II During the second bout of voluntary thinking. See pp. 259, 260. 

if See above, p. 244. 



298 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 17. 3 

If we suppose, for a moment, that Jones' interest is centred in the 
immediate future rather than in a future more remote, we observe 
that his neurography may still satisfy the conditions for consistent 
and effective action, not only on his own account but in cooperation 
with his neighbours. His single wide interest may, for example, be 
centred in a purpose to fulfil a certain ambition. Such a purpose 
may be intimately linked with the emotion of positive self-feeling. 
Being central, and being rich in affective-conative elements, it may 
exert a potent influence upon his thought and conduct, even though 
he never looks beyond the end of the life which he lives with such 
zest and vigour. Doubtless he will achieve great things, although 
his record may be marred by grave faults. But, in his old age, he will 
not fail to realise that his life has not been a success: whatever else 
we are intended to do, says Robert Louis Stevenson, we are not 
intended to succeed. And when the end has nearly come and the 
emotion that used to spur him on to his greatest achievements is 
seldom stirred, he will hardly be able to bear the thought of what 
used to be the centre of all his interest. The stimulus to activity will 
almost have disappeared, and with activity happiness goes too.... 
While the absence of interest in anything beyond the present life 
produces its most marked effect in old age, it is not without result 
aU through life. This was well recognised in Utopia where, in Green's 
words, 'The disbelievers in a Divine Being or in the immortality of 
man, who, by a single exception to its perfect religious liberty were 
excluded from public office, were excluded, not on the ground of 
their religious belief, but because their opinions were deemed to be 
degrading to mankind and therefore to incapacitate those who held 
them from governing in a noble temper.' 

It follows that the single wide interest of any member of a 
community the conduct of all of whose members is as mutually 
consistent and effective as possible, must be centred in a future 
beyond the end of his life in the body. And since, as we saw, the 
central purpose elements of the neurographies of each member must 
be rich in affective-conative elements, it follows that the typical 
member, Jones, must have an emotional interest in the future. And 
these emotional feelings must be feelings of satisfaction rather than 
the opposite. No one can strive for the fulfilment of a purpose, if its 
fulfilment will not bring him satisfaction. But anticipated satisfaction 
is nothing less than hope. Indeed, hope is the imagined, or antici- 
pated, satisfaction that will follow the fulfilment of a purpose. Hope 
accompanies the thought of every approved purpose into whose 



II. 17. 3 CHARACTER 299 

system affective-conative elements enter : of course I hope to achieve 
my purposes : if I did not, they would not be my purposes. We con- 
clude that hope — and hope for something that lies beyond his 
physical death — is one of the qualities that must accompany Jones' 
type of character: the type of character that belongs to every member 
of a community the conduct of all of whose members is as mutually 
consistent and effective as possible. ' At bottom, ' says Amiel, ' every- 
thing depends on the presence or absence of one single element in 
the soul — hope. All the activities of man...pre-suppose a hope in 
him of attaining an end. Once kill this hope, and his movements 
become senseless, spasmodic and convulsive, like those of someone 
falling from a height.'* And this hope must, we repeat, be focussed 
in something beyond the end of human life|. 'What makes old age 
so sad,' says Richter, 'is not that our joys but our hopes cease.' % 

So far then our discussion § of the character of the typical citizen 
of an ideal community has shewn us that he should possess a single 
wide interest supported by a strong Will; that he should be religious; 
and that he should have faith and hope. Such an one possesses what 
we have called a strong || character. His thought and conduct will 
be consistent and effective. Moreover, since the dominant purpose at 
the centre of his single wide interest is, we said^f, in harmony with 
the purposes of his fellow-citizens, his thought and conduct will tend 
to be consistent with the thought and conduct of his neighbours. And 
thus far we have relied upon harmony of central purpose for securing 
that the conduct of the several members of the community shall be 
mutually consistent, and therefore effective. 

* Amiel, Journal Intime, 5 Juin, 1870, quoted by Shand, loc. cit. p. 479. 

f The argument in the text requires, in the words we used before (p. 298), 
that Jones must have a hope and central purposes centred in a future beyond the 
end of his life in the body. While at first sight it might seem sufficient for these 
purposes to be centred in other human lives that will continue after Jones' 
physical death, we have to observe that the central purposes required by the 
argument in the text, just because they are central in Jones' neurography, must 
be intimately linked with, or even include, his self-regarding sentiment (see pp. 146 
and 152). Jones must, therefore, think of himself as in some sense surviving until 
the future with which his central purposes are concerned and upon which his hope 
is set. We may grant that it is possible to imagine that Jones, while still human, 
is so selfless as to have little or no self-regarding sentiment : in which case the 
' something ' (lying beyond his physical death) on which his hope is set need not 
involve himself. The requirements of the argument in the text might then be 
satisfied if Jones' self did not in some sense survive, or, in other words, if Jones 
were in no sense immortal. But, in so far as human evolution does not yet allow 
us to imagine a Commonwealth composed of such selfless citizens, the conditions, 
imposed by the argument in the text upon the central elements of Jones' neuro- 
graphy, require for their fulfilment that Jones and his fellow-citizens shall possess 
personal immortality. 

X Richter, Titan, quoted by Shand, loc. cit. p. 479. 

§ Begun in § 2 of this Chapter. || See p. 294 above. If On p. 244 above. 



300 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 17. 3 

Harmony of central purpose would indeed produce this result if 
the neurography of every member of our community had the form of 
a single maximal endarchy * corresponding to the endarchy of science 
and centred in the supreme purpose in question. But such perfectly 
integrated minds are not yet found in this imperfect stage of human 
evolution. Jones and his neighbours still inherit selfish animal in- 
stincts whose neurograms are hard to organise into a single wide 
interest-system dominated by a central purpose. So, even when 
Jones and some of his neighbours set out together to achieve a common 
purpose — to discover the South Pole, for example; or to map the 
coastline of the south polar continent — innate selfishness is not wholly 
swallowed up in unity of purpose (of which, in the case we have 
imagined, curiosity-wonder supplies the principal affective-conative 
elements). Members of the expedition do not spend all day and 
every day in discovery. Cooking and washing-up, as in more hum- 
drum circumstances, occupy a large proportion of their time. And 
harmony of their main purpose is by no means certain to prevent 
disputes or conflicts between them in regard to the performance of 
these little everyday duties. Although each man may have so organ- 
ised his thought that he involuntarily subordinates selfish motives to 
the supreme purpose of the little society of explorers, he may not have 
reached so perfect a stage of thought organisation as involuntarily 
to think of his companions' minor comforts before, or along with, his 
own. He may not have learnt to think of his neighbours as himself. 
He may still have to learn, in St Paul's words, ' not to think of himself 
more highly than he ought to think, but so to think as to think 
soberly 'f; or, as St Peter says, 'with humility.' J In short, although 
the common purpose which he shares with his fellow explorers may 
secure for him considerable freedom^ to do what he likes, because what 
he likes is what his fellow men also approve, he may not have learnt 
to treat them in all things as himself — to treat them, that is, with 
justice, or, as the Samoans say||, with love. 

* See p. 2o6 above. 

t Romans xii. 3. 

J I Peter v. 5. Compare the Sermon on the Mount : ' Blessed are the poor in 
spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' (Matthew v. 3.) 

§ Cf. p. 225 above. 

II Cd. 9210 a White Paper describing the attitude of the German Colonies 
as to their future government,' quoted in The Times, 12th December, 1918. In 
Samoa, the leading chiefs from every district stated that they were unanimous 
in wishing that Samoa should remain under British rule, and gave as one of their 
reasons: 'Because the British officials since the occupation have treated them 
^^^th love (justice), and they now win cases in the Courts, which was unknown 
formerly.' 



II. 17. 3 CHARACTER 301 

How then are minor conflicts to be avoided, or at least minimised, 
amongst fellow-citizens, who possess indeed harmonious central 
purposes dominating single wide interests, but whose single wide 
interests are not wholly in the form of single maximal endarchies — 
whose minds, in other words, are only imperfectly integrated? Only 
by seeing to it that the affective-conative elements that belong to 
the central purpose of each citizen, and impel him towards its ful- 
filment, are capable of overcoming his own incompletely subordinated 
selfish interests when these are opposed to those of his neighbours. 
The fulfilment of this condition requires that Jones' neurograms for 
his fellow-citizens shall be as intimately connected as that for his 
own self-regarding sentiment with his central purpose-system and 
its affective-conative elements*. But it is clear f that his self- 
regarding sentiment must be central in his single wide interest. 
So also therefore must be his sentiments for his neighbours. And 
therefore his neurogram for humanityj — a common essence abstracted 
from individual men, women and children — must be central in his 
single wide interest-system. But, since his thought must be true, 
his central neurograms must correspond to the central essences of the 
endarchy of science. It follows, that, if the ideal neurography that 
ensures justice between fellow human beings is to be attainable without 
sacrificing truth, humanity must also be central in the endarchy of 
science. This is a hard saying, but unless it be true — unless human 
beings really are among the most important things in the universe — 
we cannot see how truth and justice can both prevail among men, 
even in quite a small society. Somehow, then, the typical character 
in a maximally effective community requires to have its central 
purpose intimately linked with men; and not merely with mankind 
in the abstract, but with one's own well-known neighbours, as well 
as with all one's other neighbours now living throughout the world 
and still to be born into it. 

* The point is that Jones' brain process is not to be indirect: he is not to say 
' If I am unkind or unjust to Robinson, Robinson will be upset and will work 
less hard for our common purpose; therefore I will treat Robinson with justice 
and even with kindness.' But Jones' thought is to be direct: 'I will do all I can 
for Robinson because he is a friend of mine, or (in older phrase) because I love 
him.' Or, paraphrasing St John's first letter, 'He that loveth not his brother' — 
Robinson — ' whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen ' : how 
can he work for an abstract purpose of which love is the centre ? 

t Because the sentiment is closely Unked (see p. 146) to the central purpose. 

J This extension of the conception of the typical citizen's neighbours — whom 
he is to regard with love and treat with justice — from the members of a particular 
(consistent and effective) community, to every human being, is necessary if that 
society's thought and conduct is to be uninterrupted by conflicts with other 
societies, and so to be maximally effective. 



302 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 17. 3 

But what is to be said of the affective-conative elements that 
supply the driving force* of this central purpose, and are strong 
enough to overcome the typical citizen's selfish motives when these 
are opposed to his interest in his neighbours' welfare? Dr McDougall, 
in his Introduction to Social Psychology and in a later essay, has 
described eight primary emotions f that form the affective aspects of 
a like number of primary instinctive processes. The last of these eight 
emotions, Dr McDougall describes as 'tender emotion,' the affective 
aspect of the parental instinct. It is fatherly love, brotherly love, 
motherly love. It is dyaTrr], but not epo)?. 

If now we examine this list of primary emotions, it is at once clear 
that none are so sure to make for human welfare as dyaTn] on the one 
hand and curiosity-wonder on the other. Moreover, it is easy to see 
that curiosity-wonder alone, as the dominant emotional influence 
upon the central purpose of every human being, would not suffice 
to secure justice — the equal treatment of all one's neighbours and 
oneself. Even among our company of explorers, for example, by no 
means all the activities of every day would be prompted by this 
instinct-emotion : it would not suffice to ensure harmony of thought 
and action in minor matters. Indeed, dyaTrr}— or rather its linked 
instinct — alone is capable of defeating self-love and of making one 
treat one's neighbours as oneself; dydirn) alone, as the prime mover 
of the central purpose of every person's character, will ensure justice 
in human affairs. Thus Professor Zimmern writes: 

The inspiration of all sound and enduring political and social construc- 
tion is what has been called the principle of the Common wealth.... A 
Commonwealth is a community, designed to meet the common needs of 
men, founded on the principle of the service of each for all... the perfect 
Commonwealth, the ideal towards which all political and social endeavour 
moves forward, is a society of free men and women, each at once ruling 
and being ruled, each consciously giving his service for the benefit of all. 

The principle of the Commonwealth is the application to the field of 
government and social policy of the law of human brotherhood, of the 
duty of man to his neighbour, near and far.... A Commonwealth is an 
organisation designed with the ruling motive of love and brotherhood. It 
seeks to embody, not only in phraseology and constitutional doctrine, but 
in the actual conduct of pubUc affairs, so far as the frailty and imperfection 
of man admit, the spirit and ideals of religion. Whosoevev will he great 
among you shall be your minister; and whosoever oj you will be the chief est 
shall be the servant of all. 

The doctrine of the Commonwealth expressed in these words, has been 
set forth and appUed from age after age to the current problems of humanity, 

* Cf. p. 59 above. j See above, p. 51. 



II. 17. 3 CHARACTER 303 

from Plato down to President Wilson. It embodies succinctly and unanswer- 
ably, the response of the soul of man to the twin challenge of Prussianism 
and Revolution*. 

§ 4. Character and Progress. 

If, therefore, mutual consistency, and therefore efficiency, is to 
mark the thought and conduct of all the members of our ideal com- 
munity f or Commonwealth — if, that is to say, they are to advance, 
or make progress|, in any direction — the character of each of its 
members should include a strong Will cooperating with a single wide 
interest, and especially § with that part of it that is most nearly related 
to the particular member's service to the community as a whole. 
This single wide interest, and especially its central essences, should, 
as we saw in Chapter 12 1|, correspond as closely as possible with the 
endarchy of science, and be dominated by a central purpose in 
harmony with other people's central purposes^. Such a character 
implies religion, faith, hope and, most important of all, love for one's 
neighbour as the prime mover towards the fulfilment of one's central 
purpose. 

This statement of the character that belongs to every member of 

* Nationality and Government by A. E. Zimmern (1918), p. 355. 

t See above, pp. 293, 294. 

% The assumption that to make progresses (at least part of) the aim of this 
society is consistent with all that we know of living things and groups of living 
things; for we know none among them that have any other alternative but ex- 
tinction or continuous change, change that does not repeat itself and is therefore 
progressive; and we are not here concerned with the education of the members 
of a society that is content to await extinction. So we assume progressive change, 
and that as rapid as possible, to be part at least of the aim of the societj' that is 
the subject of our enquiry. In so doing we are not restricting the scope of our 
enquiry to some exceptional or exotic section of mankind. 'Advance Australia' 
is the motto of a continent. And most men in Europe and America would agree 
that the society to which they belong is also to advance, rather than to stand still 
and await destruction. It is only concerning the direction of the advance that any 
considerable doubt exists. 

Cf. Mr J. Maynard Keynes' description of Europe before the war: 'Society 
was working, not for the small pleasures of to-day, but for the security and improve- 
ment of the race — in fact for "progress."' (The Economic Consequences of the 
Peace, 1920, p. 18.) 

Cf. also Benjamin Jowett: 'The idea of progress is of modern rather than of 
ancient date; and, like the idea of a philosophy of history, is not more than a 
century or two old. It seems to have arisen out of the impression left on the 
human mind by the growth of the Roman Empire and of the Christian Church, 
and to be due to the political and social improvements which they introduced 
into the world; and still more in our own century to the idealism of the first 
French Revolution and the triumph of American Independence; and in a yet 
greater degree to the vast material prosperity and growth of population in England 
and her colonies and in America. It is also to be ascribed to the greater study of 
the philosophy of history.' (Introduction to his translation of The Republic of 
Plato, Vol. II, p. 155.) § See above, pp. 227, 228. 

II See especially pp. 244 and 231. ^ See above, p. 244. 



304 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 17. 4 

a maximally efficient and progressive society (whatever be the direction 
of its progress) is mainly concerned with the central elements of the 
neurograph3^ And necessarily so, for these are the deepest in a single 
wide interest-system such as we have defined. But these are also the 
elements which correspond to the central essences of the endarchy 
of science, essences that are not yet completely discovered. To discover 
them and other less important essences, is, we said*, the goal of 
scientific thought. It is more. To achieve correspondence between the 
central elements of one's neurography and the central essences of the 
endarchy of science is the most important f step, on the neurographic 
side, towards the formation of character. From the Christian stand- 
point, it is, as we shall shortly see|, no less than the chief end of 
every human life, determining the direction of the ideal community's 
progress. 

But how is it to be done? In just the same way as the remainder 
of one's scientific endarchy is developed to correspond with the 
endarchy of science; and this process we have already § examined at 
some length. In brief, if facts are available — that is, if things are 
generally assumed and stated to be such-and-such, and if these state- 
ments fit all available experience of the things in question || — one 
provisionally accepts, and acts on, these statements of fact with a view 
to verifying that they fit one's own experience ; and, in so doing, one 
forms one's neurograms of the facts in question, and inter-connects 
them with the remainder of one's neurography so as to form an 
organised whole. But, if facts are not available, one seeks to discover 
them by the process we have called induction : a process in which 
inspiration is combined with voluntary effort, and which is again com- 
pleted by action on a hypothesis with a view to its verification^. 

Accordingly, to achieve correspondence between the central 
elements of one's neurography and the central essences of the endarchy 
of science one may begin in either of two ways. The first is by pro- 
visionally accepting prevailing opinions, and especially opinions 
prevailing amongst those people whose views one most respects. The 
second is to seek an inspiration on one's own account. Some people 
will prefer to begin, in the first way, with ' authority ' ; and some will 
prefer to begin, in the second way, with 'private judgment.' But, in 
either case, one must proceed to act on one's provisional hypothesis — 
whether it be the prevailing opinion, or one's own inspiration — with 

* On p. 196 above. f Cf. above, p. 238. 

X On p. 306 below, especially the footnote || . 
§ In Chapters 13 and 14. || Cf. p. 192 above. 

^ See above, p. 265, footnote f. 



II. 17. 4 * CHARACTER 305 

a view to its verification, by seeing whether it fits all one's own ex- 
perience and so much of the experience of other people as one can 
disentangle from their interpretation of it. 

§ 5. The Christian Hypothesis. 

Now concerning the central essences of the endarchy of science 
there is one prevailing opinion, accepted by many of the most 
respected men of our own time and of earlier times, that merits our 
special attention, because it fits all the conclusions that we have just 
been drawing concerning the central neurographic elements in the 
typical character in a maximally efficient, and therefore progressive, 
society. This account of the central essences of our world, and of their 
relation to the (not necessarily more familiar) facts of more direct 
experience, is that given by Christianity; for, after all, as Professor 
Headlam lately said in an Oxford University Sermon *, there is such 
a thing as Christianity. And this account, that Christianity gives of 
the universe, differs only from the hitherto discovered portion of the 
endarchy of science, in that the Christian account supplies a hypothesis 
concerning the undiscovered central essences of the endarchy of 
science and their relation to its discovered portion. In short, the 
Christian account of the universe — or, as we may term it, the Christian 
philosophy — completes the discovered part of the endarchy of science 
with a hypothesis concerning the hitherto undiscovered central 
essences; and it does so, as we are about to observe, in a manner that 
enables the corresponding neurography to fulfil the conditions that 
have to be satisfied by the neurography of the typical citizen of a 
maximally efficient and progressive community. 

Of course it is conceivable that, as scientific thought proceeds 
towards its goal, it may formulate or discover f central essences that 
are at variance with those disclosed b}' the Christian philosophy as 
it exists to-day. But we are not, on that account, to wait and see. 
For unless some men formulate for themselves, or accept from others, 
and in either case act on, a hypothesis concerning these central essences, 
they never will be discovered. And, unless every man takes some 
hypothesis concerning the central essences, and acts upon it with a 
view to its verification, he will never possess the type of character 
that belongs to members of a maximally progressive community. 

We proceed to notice how the Christian account of the real world — 
the Christian philosophy — makes it possible to satisfy the conditions 

* Preached on the nth March, 1917. 
j Cf. footnote || on p. 196 above. 



3o6 THE AIM OF EDUCATION " II. 17. 5 

which our description (in § 4 of Chapter 12, and in § 3 of this chapter) 
imposes upon the neurography of the typical member of a maximally 
progressive society. We shall see that, if the Christian hypothesis 
concerning the central essences of the endarchy of science continues 
to fit experience, the central elements of a neurography which satisfies 
the other conditions in question, may also correspond to the central 
essences of the endarchy of science; so that, in particular, truth as 
well as justice may prevail in a community all of whose members 
accept and act upon the Christian hypothesis. 

In the first place, then, as we have already* seen, Christianity 
describes God as having to all else in the universe a relation that 
closely resembles the relation which the central essences of the endarchy 
of science bear to all the rest. This suggests a more descriptive name 
for the ' Christian philosophy.' That more descriptive name was used 
by its first and greatest teacher, whose teaching was described by 
his earliest disciples as the 'gospel of the kingdom of God.' 'The 
kingdom of God' is then the phrase by which we shall in future 
describe the Christian philosophy : the endarchy of science completed, 
as regards its undiscovered portion, by the Christian hypotheses 
concerning its undiscovered central essences. 

Secondly, just as we have seenj that our ideal neurography — the 
neurography of the typical citizen of a maximally progressive Common- 
wealth — must be centred in a purpose that shall correspond to the 
central essences of the endarchy of science, so Christianity insists 
that every man's thought and conduct should be subject to a single 
supreme purpose that is to be intimately linked with the central 
essence of the endarchy of science, and therefore, according to the 
Christian account, with God. 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God 'J 
was Christ's exhortation to his disciples to let their lives be governed 
by a single dominant purpose §. In fact, the advancementof the kingdom 
of God' in the minds of men is the central purpose of every true 
Christian II . 

Thirdly, Christianity places man in a peculiarly close relationship 

* On p. 241 above. f On pp. 295 and 244 above. 

X Matthew vi. 33. Or again, when some one said to Christ 'Lord, I will follow 
thee...,' his reply was 'Go thou and preach the kingdom of God.' (Luke ix. 57 
and 60.) 

§ Cf . St Paul : ' As many as are led by the Spirit of God ' — the central purpose 
which is God — 'they are the sons of God.' (Romans viii. 14.) 

II This statement is consistent with a suggestion made in footnote * on p. 241 
where we said that the central purpose was ' to know God.' For the advancement 
of the kingdom of God in the minds of men includes its advancement in our own 
individual minds; and that means organising our neurographies according to the 
Christian conception of the endarchy of science; and that includes making the 



II. 17. 5 CHARACTER 307 

to God. Jesus taught his disciples to call God their 'father.' Just so 
we found* that some essence of mankind, and indeed some essences 
of all individual men, must be near the centre of the endarchy of 
science, and therefore near the central essence of that endarchy. 

Fourthly, we have seenf that active faith is essential to the 
development of an ideal character; or at least J of the character that 
secures consistent and effective conduct among the citizens of an 
ideal Commonwealth. So, too, Christianity asserts the essential 
importance of active faith in the Christian character. ' Without faith,' 
says the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews, 'it is impossible to 
please God.'§ And the faith that, according to Christianity, is the 
first step towards knowing God, and to the salvation — eternal life — 
which this knowledge brings with it|i, is no passive acceptance of 
unverified dogma ^ but action on a hypothesis — the hypothesis that 
Christianity offers concerning the undiscovered part of the endarchy 
of science — with a view to its verification. 

It is true that this faith, on which Christians have always laid so 
much stress that St Paul even wrote of 'being justified by faith,' is 
often supposed to be merely passive and not active at all. But this 
view is surely mistaken. When St Paul told the jailor 'Believe** on 
the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved' he meant 'Go and 
act upon the fundamental hypothesis of Christianity — that there is 
a God and that Jesus Christ knew him (or at least knew him far more 
fully than any man has ever known him before or since) and so taught 
truth concerning him — and in so doing you will become satisfied that 
your assumption is correct, and at the same time you will come to 
love your neighbour and to love God whom to know is life eternal.' 
But, if St Paul did not continually insist that the faith of which he 
wrote was essentially active and not passive, Jesus was always 
quite explicit about it. For Jesus summed up the law and the 
prophets in the golden rule : ' Whatsoever ye would that men should 
do to you, do ye even so to them.' He emphasised the same 
point in the parable of the sheep and the goats, when he made the 
difference between the saved and the unsaved to consist solely in the 

central elements of our neurographies correspond to the central essences of this 
Christian endarchy, the kingdom of God; and that means knowing God, since 
God is the centre of the Christian endarchy. 

* On p. 301 above. f On p. 297 above. 

X See also p. 299. § Hebrews xi. 6. 

|| 'This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and 
Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.' (John xvii. 3.) 

^ Cf. p. 297 above. 
** In Greek iria-rtva-ov, the same word as faith {rrla-ris). 



3o8 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 17. 5 

fact that the former had actively served* their fellows while the 
latter had not: no question was raised as to the passive opinions of 
either. And again, in the Sermon on the Mount, he said ' Not every 
one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of 
heaven; but he that doeth....' 

Fifthly, just as we have seenf that hope for something that lies 
beyond the end of human life is an essential constituent of the 
character of the typical citizen of our ideal Commonwealth, so 
Christianity insists on the essential importance of hope, hope of 
salvation J, hope of eternal Hfe§. 

Sixthly, we saw|| that brotherly love — dyaTrr] — is an essential and 
central constituent of the typical character among a maximally 
progressive community. And Christianity makes dyaTn] supreme in 
the kingdom of God; or, in other words, gives dydirrj the central place 
in its philosophy. For Christianity teaches that 'God is love.'^ Thus 
Christianity supplies** the dominant emotional element in the 
Christian character, and it intimately links this emotion with its 
central purpose that we have described as ' knowing God.' For, if God 
is love, one cannot know God without loving. Any attempt to form 
a neurogram of God as the central element of a single wide in- 
terest-system and to omit from it this affective-conative element, 
whose activity accompanies loving thoughts and loving deeds, would 
ignore the very essence of God. If, therefore, we accept the funda- 
mental teachings of Christianity as our central hypothesis, we must 
not only seekff to know God|J, but must also love him and all men, 
so fulfilling Christ's summary of the commandments: 'Thou shalt 

* It is indeed a remarkable circumstance that, insisting as Jesus did on the 
paramount importance of active service of others — the 'conative element' in 
Christianity, corresponding to the fundamental 'emotional element,' brotherly- 
love — his followers, hardly less than his critics, have commonly regarded his 
religion as one of suppression rather than of activity and growth. They have laid 
stress on the need for leaving undone what ought not to be done, instead of on 
the need for doing what ought to be done. The ' conative element ' in Christianity 
is surely not self-denial but action : the devotion of one's life to the active service 
of others. Whatever self-denial is involved is secondary, incidental; the things 
given up are crowded out by action. And activity, especially activity in the 
service of others, is a chief source of happiness. The mediaeval saints who cut 
themselves off from the world, underwent great hardship in the quest of their 
own salvation, and, in some instances, finished by crucifying themselves, were 
widely mistaken if they thought that they were following in the footsteps of Jesus 
who went about doing good. 

t See above, p. 299. | i Thessalonians v. 8. 

§ Titus iii. 7. || On p. 302 above. 

^ I John iv. 8. 
** One cannot reflect upon the character and conduct of Jesus Christ, and 
especially upon the manner of his death, without loving him. 
•ff Hebrews xi. 6. JJ John xvii. 3. 



II. 17. 5 CHARACTER 3Q9 

love the Lord thy God...' and 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
thyself.' * Thus Christianity teaches that we are not here merely to 
know t God, but also to fulfil his purposes : knowing God, loving God 
and fulfilhng his commandments J, all go together. 

We thus see how closely the Christian hypothesis concerning the 
central essences of the real world corresponds to the central neuro- 
graphic elements in the character of the typical member of a maximally 
progressive community. Moreover, some such hypothesis must, as we 
saw§, be acted upon by every one who would possess this type of 
character. The Christian hypothesis is not necessarily the only 
possible one from which to start. But if any other that equally well 
fits the facts we have been considering has ever been formulated, it 
certainly is not so readily available, or so widely accepted already, as 
that which Christianity offers. We conclude that every member of 
a maximally progressive society should begin with the Christian 
hypothesis. And, since no society can be as progressive as possible if 
its freedom to fulfil its common purpose is liable to interference from 
rival societies outside it, a maximally progressive society is one that 
includes the whole hum,an race. It follows that, if all mankind, or any 
section of it, is to advance (never mind in what direction) as rapidly 
as possible, all men should provisionally accept, and, with a view to 
verifying it, act upon, the Christian hypothesis concerning all that is 
most important in the universe. We note in passing that, when the 
Christian hypothesis has been decided upon, the direction of the 
progress — namely towards the fulfilment of the central Christian 
purpose 1 1 — is also determined. 

We must however be careful to realise that the acceptance of the 
fundamental teachings of Christianity does not mean the acceptance 
of all the frills that have gradually been added to them, even so 
as to obscure them altogether. Or, changing the metaphor, we have 
to be careful to distinguish the foundations of the Christian church 
from its gargoyles. If, therefore, that is true for any man which fits 
his personal experience and so much of the experience of others as 
he can disentangle from their interpretation of it^, there is much 
reason to expect that, whoever will begin to act on the hypothesis 
that Christianity is true, will find the hypothesis fit his experience, 
and so will verify it. But his experience, as it develops, will doubtless 
lead to modifications of any unessential assumptions which he may 

* Matthew xxii. 37 and 39. t Cf. above, footnote * on p. 241, and p. 218. 

X Cf. I John V. 3. § On p. 305 above. 

II See above, p. 306. H Cf. p. 305 above. 

20—3 



3IO THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 17.5 

include in his first approximation. His Christianity will thus be sure 
to differ, in some respects, from that of any other Christian. Indeed, 
it must, if it be a living faith, grow from day to day and from hour to 
hour. 

Moreover, if we can find no better central hypothesis upon which 
men are to act in the interests of human progress, we can find none 
better for them to advise their pupils to take as a first approximation, 
and to act upon with a view to verifying it. But its experimental* 
character must be made clear from the outset. 

* Cf . Dr Stanley Hall : ' Religion is not theology nor yet ethics, but personal 
and experimental.' (Adolescence, Vol. ii, p. 326, quoted above, p. 297.) 



CHAPTER 18 

THE AIM OF EDUCATION 

Here then at last we have our answer to the question, ' What should 
be the aim of education?' And our answer is, 'To form Christian 
characters': characters of the kind described on p. 303, but such that 
the most central neurographic elements, while fulfilling the conditions 
there laid down, also correspond to the most important things in the 
universe as interpreted by Christianity. 

But these characters, although they are all to include strong Wills 
cooperating with single wide interest-systems centred in elements 
that correspond to the same supreme purpose, are not (we remind* 
ourselves) to be identical in respect of the remainder of their content. 
For the many members of the world society are not all to have the 
same office. Division of labour is as necessary for the effective achieve- 
ment of the supreme purpose of mankind as for so many of the 
subsidiary purposes with which every civilised community is familiar. 
Differentiation of function, partly depending upon innate constitu- 
tional differences between individuals, must be prepared for by a 
world-wide (as by a national or even municipal) system of education. 

So the Christian character that education should aim at forming 
in every human being, should consist of a strong Will cooperating 
with a single wide interest-system f, of which the central elements 
correspond to the central essences of the Christian hypothesis, while 
the peripheral elements correspond to the subject's unorganised 
experience. These peripheral elements are linked to each other and 
to the central elements by an intermediate system of organised ele- 
ments — the scientific endarchy J — that should correspond as closely as 
possible with the endarchy of science, and especially with that part 
of it that is most closely related to the particular group of activities 
which the individual in question contributes as his share towards 
the fulfilment of the common purpose of himself and all his neighbours, 
near and far. And that common supreme purpose of all world-citizens§ 
is — in a phrase to which our enquiry has given precise significance! | — 
the advancement of the kingdom of God in the minds of men. 

* Cf. pp. 227, 232. t See above, p. 244. J See above, p. 228. 

§ See above, p. 306. || See above, p. 309. 



CHAPTER 19 

THE AIM OF EDUCATION— SUMMARY 

The results obtained in the foregoing enquiry concerning the aim of 
education in a World Commonwealth may now be summarised, before 
we pass on to enquire how this aim can be most effectively and 
rapidly achieved in the England of to-day. 

In Book I we summarised Professor Adams' history of the aim of 
education in the past. We noticed the absence of any clearly defined 
and generally recognised aim for education as a whole — a national 
or world-wide system of education — at the present time. We observed 
the need for such an aim : an aim provisionally agreed upon and 
actively pursued, but capable of modification to fit new facts. And, 
finally, in the light of opinions expressed by great educators before 
the advent of the experimental science of physiological psychology, 
we provisionally decided that the aim of education, at least during 
adolescence and maturity, should be to develop, in every educand, 
a single wide interest — a unity of knowledge and feeling — that should 
be the principal factor in determining his thought and action. 

In Book II we have sought further light from physiological 
psychology. We enunciated five ' laws of thought,' of which the first 
three summed up the leading available facts concerning the physio- 
logical processes that accompany thinking, and led to an important 
corollary concerning the influence of one's neurography — one's 
system of low resistance paths along which the nervous impulse 
passes — upon one's thought ; namely, that the value of a neurogram — 
a system of low resistance paths whose excitement accompanies a 
thought-activity — measured by the effect it produces upon the stream 
of thought (and so, as we afterwards saw, upon conduct), depends 
upon its connexions with other neurograms. This effect, we found, 
was greater, the wider and deeper the interest-system of which the 
neurogram in question forms part; and, under certain conditions — if, 
for example the system is organised according to a particular pattern 
that we called a ' maximal endarchy ' — is also greater the more central 
the position it occupies in that system. Later we saw that a system 
of neurograms that corresponds to a purpose tends to have a greater 
influence on thought and conduct than any other system equally 



II. 19 THE AIM OF EDUCATION— SUMMARY 313 

wide and deep ; and that every such purpose-system tends to be rich 
in emotional elements. 

The fourth law postulated a form of psycho-physical interaction : 
the freedom of the Will to influence brain processes. We found, 
in recent experimental and statistical enquiries, evidence of the 
presence of one and the same general factor in all human qualities. 
This factor we identified with Will, so that its measure, g, measures 
the extent to which one's Will is able to influence one's thought and 
conduct. The occasions and manner of that influence were next 
investigated. We found no evidence that Will intervenes in the 
stream of thought-activities except to resolve conflicts between rival 
interest-systems; and we saw that reasoning is the principal means by 
which Will resolves such conflicts and organises the neurography to 
prevent their occurrence or recurrence. So we came to examine the 
reasoning process, especially in its relation to the world of experience 
with which men's reasoning is chiefly concerned. We were thus led 
to a definition of the 'neat, trim, tidy, exact world which is the goal of 
scientific thought,' and we described it as the 'endarchy of science.' 

We next asked ourselves how far, having regard to the various 
activities of different men and women in the life of the community to 
which they belong, should their several neurographies correspond to 
this complete endarchy of science. We answered that, for a number 
of reasons which we enumerated, and, in particular, so as to ensure 
efficient and consistent thinking that makes for human progress, every 
citizen ought to develop a tidy and perfectly integrated mind — a 
single endarchy of neurograms — which should correspond, in so far 
as the time and effort available for his education and his own 
' educability ' permit, to the endarchy of science; but which can never 
correspond to the complete endarchy, nor even to all that part of it 
which has yet been discovered; and which, therefore, should correspond 
to part only of the complete endarchy, the part in question depending 
upon the special activities of the individual citizen in thehfeof the com- 
munity to which he belongs, but should always include central elements 
corresponding to the central essences of the endarchy of science. Then 
the personal endarchies of the several citizens would each form a 
single interest-system consisting, as regards its centre, of elements 
which correspond to the central essences of the endarchy of science, 
and, for the rest, made up, partly of a scientific endarchy of neurograms 
corresponding to part of the endarchy of science, and partly of less 
well organised neurograms corresponding to the remainder of his 
experience. Such a neurography we described as a single wide 



314 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 19 

interest-system. The central elements in every citizen's neurography, 
would then, we saw*, correspond to purposes; and, since the central 
elements of different citizens' neurographies were all to correspond 
to the same central essences of the endarchy of science, the central 
dominant purposes of all the citizens would be in harmony with one 
another. We went on to consider how neurographies of this kind 
may be developed; and we saw that, while the instinct-emotion of 
curiosity-wonder has an immensely important part to play, their 
development is in the main a voluntary process in which the teacher's 
Will gradually gives place to the pupil's as, in later adolescence, the 
pupil becomes, and thereafter remains, his own chief educator. 

Our fifth law extended from thought to conduct, from intelligence 
to character, the application of our earlier discussions of the influence 
of neurography and Will upon the stream of thought. So the five laws f 
between them summed up, in a manner consistent with available 
experience, the working of the physical and psychical factors — 
neurography and Will — that characterise a human being by deter- 
mining how he reacts to his environment. In particular, the extension 
effected by our fifth law enabled us to see that the type of neurography 
that we had described as a single wide interest-system, and that makes 
for efficient and consistent thinking, will also make for consistent and 
effective conduct, especially if it be helped by strong Will. And it 
further appeared that, if the central purpose essences of the single 
wide interests of a group of people were mutually harmonious 
(implying some essential purpose common to them all), the conduct 
of each member of the group — each citizen of the Commonwealth — 
would not only tend to be consistent with itself, but also with the 
conduct of the other members. Thus we had defined some of the con- 
ditions that should be fulfilled by the character of every member of 
a community in order to ensure mutually consistent conduct among 
them all. The type of character that satisfied these conditions we 
described by the word ' strong.' 

Then we attempted a further step, this time into the domain of 
ethics. Having described a strong character, could we define a 
higher type that we might reasonably describe as ' good ' ; or even as 
'best,' so that to develop it in every citizen should be the aim of 
education? For we saw that the aim of education could not be defined 
until the aim of life had first been determined. 

In the absence of any generally accepted view of the aim of 
human life, we assumed, consistently with a very widespread belief 
* See above, p. 238. j See above, p. 289. 



II. 19 THE AIM OF EDUCATION— SUMMARY 315 

among western peoples, that human societies should at least aim at 
making progress — advancing continuously towards the fulfilment of 
some far reaching purpose. And we found that, if the Commonwealth, 
whose citizens' education concerns us, is to make as rapid progress 
as possible, not only should its typical citizen possess a 'strong' 
character, but the central purpose-elements of his single wide interest- 
system should correspond to a hypothesis concerning the central 
undiscovered essences of the endarchy of science, and should fulfil 
four other conditions. These other conditions required that the central 
purpose-elements in question should be formed by active faith, 
action- on a hypothesis with a view to verifying it; be rich in hope; 
be stimulated by brotherly love more than by any other primary 
emotion (since, unless brotherly love is the chief emotional constituent 
of the common central purpose of all the members of a community, 
they will hardly avoid conflicts about the minor matters of everyday 
life, however strongly they strive for the fulfilment of the main purpose 
that they have in common); and include, among the most central 
of all, elements corresponding to the essence of humanity. All these 
conditions are satisfied by the fundamental Christian hypothesis : that 
God is the centre of the universe, the central fact of the endarchy of 
science ; that knowledge of God begins by faith ; that hope of eternal 
life belongs to people who seek to know God; that brotherly love is 
of the very essence of God; and that all human beings are in some 
peculiarly close relation to God. 

No other hypothesis that fits the conditions is so readily available, 
or so widely accepted, or perhaps has ever been formulated ; although 
one could conceivably be imagined. So we concluded that every mem- 
ber of a maximally progressive community — whatever the direction 
of its progress — will naturally begin with the Christian hypothesis to 
complete and focus the single wide interest which, in cooperation with 
a strong Will, will form his character. Such a character we described 
as a Christian character. And we observed that, the Christian 
hypothesis having been selected to focus the single wide interest, the 
directionof thecommunity's progress was determined : namely, towards 
the fulfilment of the supreme Christian purpose, which we analysed 
and described as 'the advancement of the kingdom of God in the 
minds of men.' By the phrase 'the kingdom of God' we denoted 
the endarchy of science as hitherto discovered, but completed, as 
regards its central undiscovered portion, by the Christian hypothesis 
concerning the central essences of the universe and their relations to 
each other and to all the rest. 



3i6 THE AIM OF EDUCATION II. 19 

Thus, in a maximally progressive community (and therefore — 
since no group can be maximally progressive if possible conflict with 
other groups restricts its freedom to develop — among the whole 
human race), the common supreme purpose must be this Christian 
purpose, and the typical character must be the Christian character 
just defined. The aim of education, the world over, followed at once: 
' to form Christian characters,' with all the manifold outer differences 
that are necessary if their several owners are to cooperate effectively 
for the fulfilment of their common supreme purpose. 



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CHAPTER 20 
TYPES OF SOCIAL SERVICE 

§ I. Some Principles of Selection. 
How is this aim of education to be realised? How, in particular, can 
a world-wide, national, or provincial system of education develop in 
every citizen this ideal character, with its single wide interest-system 
that partly depends upon the individual's activities, social as well as 
vocational? For, until we know the types of activity that a given 
person is to engage in, the type of character he should ideally possess 
remains indeterminate*. 

The problem how to fashion a perfect system of education — a 
system that will achieve, in the case of every member of a World 
Commonwealth, the aim of education that we have defined f — 
depends, therefore, on knowing what each person's occupation is 
going to be. So the far simpler problem with which we shall be 
principally concerned in Book III — the problem how to adapt and 
develop (and especially how to begin to adapt and develop) the 
present provision of education in England, so as ultimately to 
transform it along the path of least total resistance (the future being 
discounted at a reasonable rate) into the most perfect system that can 
at present be conceived for England — depends for its solution upon 
first classif3ang the occupations of English citizens. Until that has been 
done, the problem of developing in a sufficient number of future 
citizens corresponding types of single wide interest, and therefore of 
character, cannot be solved. 

Any attempt to decide beforehand, and without regard to their 
natural abilities, what positions particular children were to occupy 
when grown-up, and to educate them accordingly, would probably 
meet with disaster; but it is by no means certain that this disaster 
would be greater than that which attends the present practice of 
educating without regard to future occupation. 

It is, however, quite another matter, first to investigate the 
qualities — especially the kind of single wide interest, and the degree 
of 'general ability' or 'g'X — required by those who are to occupy 
the various positions in industry, commerce, and other essential 

* See above, p. 292. f See above. Chapter 18. 

X See above, Chapter 7, and especially pp. 113 to 117. 

21—^ 



[Copyright] 



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A NATIONAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATION 

proposed to be brought into operation in Engiand during the decade endlne 

TEN YEARS HENCE 

20 I. 22 



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University Part-time 

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and W.E.A. Classes) 



Undergraduate 



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Miscellaneous Part-time 

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Advanced Secondary 
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Senior Teclinical 
Intermediate Part time 




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EXPLANATION OF DIAGRAM 



The diagram is a 'flow diagram,' the flow being from left to right 
Where the national system of education should make different provision 
for boys and girls respectively, particularly in respect of the types 
of education represented on the right-hand side of the diagram, the 
arrangement shown by the diagram is that proposed for boys and 
young men. The diagram relates only to the education of normal and 
super-normal people ; it does not show the special provision required 
for seriously defective children. 

Horizontal Scale: The figures along the top and bottom of the 
diagram represent years of age of the ' modal '• boy or girl. 

Vertical Scale : The figures up the left margin of the diagram 
represent percentages of the young people of a given age. 
The intercept made on any vertical line, or ordinate, by the enclosed 
area which corresponds to a school, or by the coloured area which 
corresponds to a type of education, is proportional to the number 
of pupils of the corresponding age who should be attending the 
type of school or receiving the type of education in question. For 
example, the intercept on the l5-year ordinate shows that, of the 
children of 15 years of age, 6"„ should be attending a Higher 
Secondary School, 29". an ordinary or lower Secondary Schoo , 
irt a Junior Technical School, 5";, a Central Elementary School, 
and 45' ,, a Part-time Secondary School (or • Fisher Continuation 
School ■')'. 

Moreover, the vertical scale indicates the proportion of the whole 
number of young people who pass from one type of school to 
another at any age of transfer. For example, at the age of 12, 15% 
of the children are shown as passing from Elementary Schools 
to ordinary or lower Secondary Schools; or, at the age of 18,4";, 
of the young men are shown as passing (possibly, in the case of 
entineering students, after a short interval in works, marked by the 
thick black line) from Higher Secondary Schools to the University. 

Colouring represents types of education, unshaded colours represent- 
ing whole time education and shaded (singly batched) colours 
representing part-time education, whether day or evening. 
As a rule the lighter colours at the top of the diagram represent 
more abstract and more coherent, but less comprehensive studies 
than the darker tints below them in the same columns of the dia- 
eram For example, junior secondary education is more abstract 
and coherent, but less comprehensive, than senior elementary; 
intermediate secondary than senior secondary ; advanced secondary 
than senior technicalt; and intermediate part-time than senior 
part-time. 

Moreover the more abstract and coherent courses (marked by the 
iehter colours) prepare for more concrete and comprehensive 
studies (marked by darker colours) in the final and most specific 
staee of whole-time or part-time education. For example, • inter- 
medtate ' courses, whole-time or part-time, are distingiaished from 
"senior- courses for pupils of the same age and education in tha 
intermediate courses are transitional, preparing for higher work that 
is toTollow, while senior courses are terminal, finishing off whole- 
tilie or par -time education as the case may be. Thus intermediate 



« Bv the age of the ■ modal ' boy for a given position i 
fVsci*a of the ■ mode,' or highest point, of tW age d 
The t^te Sf school and receivfng the type of education 
in thcrdiagram, 

t Seniot technical courses 

' i_:-« 1 „^Ar,.ial dome 



. the diagr — ... 

itribution of boys attending 
represented by that position 









/vhole-t 



jes, whether in indus- 

-.--- . : or any otner vocational subjects for 

trial, Commercial, domestic. ="'■ "'""'^L,, , he standard marked by the school 
V-rIp"f!t-^°?fon;'^rd'rho^^on'onm\''n^^rpV1,"c^ 



ucation which has a centn 
ich the pupil is expected to 



e group of occupations 



secondary education between 14 and 16 leads on to advanced 
secondary or senior technical education between 16 and 18, and 
intermediate part-time courses lead on to advanced part-time 
courses between 18 and 21; while senior secondary and senior 
technical courses finish whole-time education, leading to employ- 
ment and part-time education at 16 and 18 respectively. 

Lettering represents types of school or other educational institution. 
Indicating types of school by lettering and types of education by 
colouring, the diagram is able to show that one type of school may 
provide more than one type of course of study and also that one 
type of course of study may be pursued in more than one type of 
school. Thus, junior secondary education between 12 and 14 may 
be obtained in a 'Preparatory School,' in a Higher Secondary 
School, in a (lower) Secondary School, or in a Junior Technical 
School. On the other hand, betvveen 14 and 16 a (lower) Secondary 
School may provide intermediate secondary education or senior 
secondary education ; while, between 16 and 18, a Higher Secondary 
School may provide advanced secondary education or senior 
technical 1 education ; and, also between 16 and 18, a Senior Tech- 
nical School ; may provide (whole-time) senior technical courses 
and intermediate part-time courses. • 

The number of boys or young men who should be attending any 
particular type of school or receiving any particular type of educa- 
tion can be read off from the diagram, when once the scale of the 
diagram has been fixed. If, for example, the diagram relate to the 
education of boys and young men in a 'province' of 5,000,000 
people, thus fixing the scale of the diagram, one per cent, of a com- 
plete two-year vertical column— a unit area equal to ^ 

-will stand for 1,000 boys or men attending the type of schooler 
receivine the type of education represented by the portion of the 
diagram in which that unit area is situated. Thus, in a population 
of 5,000,000 people there should, according to the diagram, be 6,000 
boys (4,000 receiving advanced secondary .and 2,000 senior technical 
education) attending the Higher Secondary Schools of the pro- 
vince ' for two years between .6 and .8 years of age ; or 6 000 men 
undergraduates attending its University (whole-time) for three years 

from 18. 
Arrow-heads represent scholarships, together with such main- 
tenance allowances as are required to secure that ejery k.nd 
education is brought within the reach of all British ubjc 
sufficient educational promise, irrespective both °^ J-^"' f^"^ 
residence in the United Kingdom and of their private financial 
circumstances. 

-» Indicates that a constant N Pe"°n^l";;'"g'''V„thtMhta"ow: 
supply of systematically | sponds .0 ^ --"octd,^n''^ f- 

head points. 



• Indicates that a few < 
ceptional • 



O indicates a supplementary scholarship with maintenance allow^^ee 
where necessary, enabling the exceptional .P"?o" *"° 
to pass on to a higher institution of unspecified type. 

Classes A, B, C, and D in the <l°"bly-hatchedregion on.heright 
of the diagram represent different 'yP«..°f fj'" ,'°Jes mark 
munity. The breaks in the lines separating hesecUsse ^^^^ 
the fact that transition from ""e class to another is Dy 
wholly determined by school or college education. 

, Se,„or Technical Schools here include -hoolsof art commerce, domestic sub,«», 
♦ and other similar post-secondary non-university schools. ^ j^__.„ 

s; A few exceptional persons passing from advanced f'^^^''^^''^'u«i..,^>^^ »' 
> technical School to (whole-timel ""^frK"''"f" 'S 
indu ated by the single-headed arrow with the wavy snan. 



320 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 20.1 

departments of English life ; and afterwards to indicate a means of de- 
veloping the required qualities in a sufficient number of persons selected 
on account of their innate aptitudes for each different kind of work. 

Moreover, selection of this kind makes for the wellbeing of the 
community and of every individual member of it. Without selection 
it is impossible to realise the Pauline* — or Platonic f — ideal of a 
commonwealth in which there are many different members together 
forming one body. Without selection, effective division of labour 
becomes impossible; and so also does that efficient production which 
enables a community to exempt from productive labour, and yet to 
maintain, those discoverers, teachers, seers or prophets on whom it 
should so largely depend in the weightiest affairs of human life. Or, 
in the jargon of to-day, square pegs in round holes, with the friction 
and unrest caused by such misfits, are the inevitable consequences of 
inadequate selection. 

If it be argued, on the other side, that a pohcy of selection is 
inconsistent with equality of opportunity for every boy and girl and 
man and woman, we reply that this would indeed be true if selection 
were based upon any considerations except those of the personal 
qualities of the young people selected at several stages of education 
to receive, if necessary at the public expense, whatever higher type 
of education is justified by their own educational promise. If, for 
example, a boy's or girl's selection, for transfer to a school or college 
giving a higher type of education, depended upon his or her father's 
ability to pay high fees, or even to do without the money his child 
might have been earning, a policy of selection would be indefensible. 
Or, if scholarships and maintenance allowances to enable selected 
young people to receive higher education varied greatly in different 
parts of the country, there would still be much to be said against 
selection. Indeed, the selection of young people for transfer from one 
type of education to another must be made irrespective both of the 
young people's place of residence and of their private financial 
circumstances. A policy of selection will then have nothing to fear 
from the rival policy of throwing every kind of education open to 
all boys and girls who, with their parents' consent, prefer the cool 
and calm of academic groves, however incomprehensible they find 
the pursuits there, to the feverish strife of the world outside. 

For, in the first place, the interests of the individual would 
obviously suffer were his education to run some uniform course, 
irrespective of his personal aptitude for the particular studies in 
* Romans xii. 4. f Republic, Book 11. 



III. 20. 1 TYPES OF SOCIAL SERVICE 321 

question, and quite apart from his liking for the walk in life to which 
that education had been designed to lead. 'The idea,' wrote Ruskin, 
'of a general education that is to fit everybody to be Emperor of 
Russia... is the most entirely and directly diabolical of all the countless 
stupidities into which the British nation has, of late, been betrayed.' * 
In the second place, public interests would certainly suffer if 
places of higher learning were filled by persons whose intellectual 
qualities and aims in life did not allow them to profit by the studies 
there pursued. If, for example, the medical schools of the country 
ceased to select candidates by a matriculation or entrance examination 
and instead threw open their doors to all who might like to enter 
at the public expense, the crowd of incompetents would prevent the 
better type of student from acquiring the knowledge and experience 
needed to make him an efficient medical practitioner later on. The 
medical service of the country would thus be seriously impaired ; and 
other public services would suffer in the same way if the educational 
avenues by which they are approached were thronged by unqualified 
and incompetent crowds. Even if these avenues were so widened as 
to make ample room for everybody to pass from the elementary 
school to the secondary school and so to the university, the abstract 
studies of the higher educational institutions would not only fail to 
train, but would actually impair, the less able intellects. Indeed, the 
children for whose education so much has lately been done in schools 
for mentally defective children, would lose these benefits, and get 
nothing instead, were they expected to follow the same educational 
paths as had been prepared for other people ; and it is to be remem- 
bered that the low grade intelligences here in question do not form 
a well defined class by themselves, but are merely the extremes in 
an approximately normal distribution of ability f. Whoever recog- 
nises that so-called mentally defective children should be selected 
from the rest for special treatment, ought therefore also to recognise 
that separate treatment is equally desirable for every grade of 
subnormality or supernormality : and this means selection. So we 
shall expect that in the words of the prophecy of Mr Wells' modern 
Job, 'The qualities that serve the great ends of the race will be 
cherished and increased; the sorts of men and women that have 
these qualities least will be made to understand the necessary re- 
straints of their limitations.' J 

* Fors Clavigera, p. 254. 

t Cf. C. Burt, The Distribution and Relations of Educational Abilities. See also 
p. 475 below. % The Undying Fire, p. 211. 



322 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 20. l 

It is, indeed, obvious that educational, as well as economic, con- 
siderations forbid the provision of a uniform system of education that 
would require, encourage, or even enable all young people, no matter 
how inferior their ability, to receive a type of education designed to 
fit the ablest of them to render to the community the best service of 
which they were capable. We should neither ignore the value of 
education altogether*, nor attempt to provide all men and women, 
whatever their ability and inclination, with identical education, but 
rather bring every kind of education within the reach of all citizens 
whose educational promise is sufficient to justify their selection to 
receive, if necessary at the public expense, that type of education 
which, having regard to their ability and inclination, will best fit them 
to serve their fellows and to find their own happiness in that service f . 

Recognising then that children and young people who are to 
receive a higher type of education, if necessary at the pubhc expense, 
must be selected from among their fellows, we have to answer the 
question how this selection can best be effected. The nature of the 
selective test, with the part to be played in the selection by teachers, 
parents, pupils, external examiners and education authorities, is to 
be discussed in Chapter 25 below. At this point we need only consider 
some underlying principles. 

We take first the quantitative aspect of the matter, and ask how 
many children and young people are to be selected, at each stage of 
education, for transfer to higher studies? The answer to this question 
depends upon the number of people required to render to the com- 
munity the various types of service of which it stands in need, 
including those services of discovery, authorship, preaching and 
teaching that minister to the spiritual and intellectual needs of 
mankind but do not contribute directly to the production of material 
wealth. 

Having decided approximately how many men and women are 

* Cf. Winston Churchill, A Far Country, p. 455. 'It is difficult to answer 
a man who denies the cardinal principle of American democracy — that a good 
mayor or a governor may be made out of a dog-catcher. He called this the 
Cincinnatus theory, that any American, because he was an American, was fit for 
any job in the gift of state or city or government from sheriff to Ambassador to 
Great Britain. Krebs substituted for this fallacy what may be called the doctrine 
of potentiality. If we inaugurated and developed a system of democratic education, 
based on scientific principles, and caught the dog-catcher young enough, he might 
become a statesman or thinker or scientist, and make his contribution to the 
welfare and progress of the nation: again, he might not; but he would have his 
chance, he would not be in a position to complain. Here was a doctrine, I imme- 
diately perceived, which it would be suicidal to attempt to refute....' 

f Cf . Ruskin : ' The education that makes men happiest in themselves is that 
which also makes them most serviceable to others.' 



III. 20. 1 TYPES OF SOCIAL SERVICE 323 

required for each different type of service, the community must next 
take into account the numbers that are already being privately 
educated for it. Of course the private provision of education, including 
those great private institutions that in England we know as ' public 
schools,' will especially cater for persons who hope to undertake the 
most influential, interesting and remunerative forms of service. But 
the public provision of education is not, on this account, to leave those 
occupations as the preserve of families distinguished by wealth or 
social position. On the contrary, it is of great importance to the 
community that the national system of education should supply 
ambassadors, diplomats, bishops, financiers, captains of industry and 
other leaders in church and state, better qualified for their responsible 
positions than were many or most of those who occupied these 
positions in the past. This statement by no means implies that the 
private provision of education in England will cease to supply any, 
or even many, leaders of the nation's thought and action ; but it does 
imply that privately educated men will in future secure only those 
positions for which they are better qualified than the best men that 
the State has been able to select and to educate for the same kind of 
work. In other words, the number of people who should be selected, 
reselected, and selected again to receive, so far as is necessary at the 
public expense, the kind of education that will best prepare them for 
a particular kind of service, is the number which, when added to the 
number of those whom private education will have prepared as well 
or better for the same kind of service, will suffice to supply so much 
of the demand as is also a need for service of the type in question. 
Healthy competition between a national system of education on the 
one hand, and efficient private schools and colleges on the other, will 
facilitate educational experiments, make for progress and a high 
standard of work in the pubhc as well as in the private educa- 
tional institutions, and so benefit the nation; provided always that 
the private schools and colleges are subject to inspection, and are 
only permitted to survive so long as they do not waste the human 
or material resources with which they are entrusted*. On this con- 
dition, it should be open to anyone to be trained, according to his own 
choice, either in State-aided institutions, partly at the State's and 
partly at his own expense, or else privately, at no cost to public 
funds. 

* The improvement of public secondary education has compelled many private 
schools of an old-fashioned type to close their doors, and will probably result in 
the closing of a good many more when they have been publicly inspected in 
accordance with Mr Fisher's Education Act of 1918. 



324 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 20. i 

Candidates who obtain the highest places in the examination 
for the higher division of the Civil Service do not all give the same 
order of preference to the various government offices which they 
might enter. They differ, for example, on the question whether the 
Indian or the Home Civil Service is to be preferred. So it sometimes 
happens that a candidate, who is placed second or third or even lower 
on the list, may secure the unique billet which he would have sought 
had he obtained the highest place. In the same way, it will not in- 
frequently happen that a boy or girl who, having reached a stage of 
education when two or more alternative courses are open, and having 
been selected to follow the highest course that leads to more responsible 
work, but work involving greater intellectual effort, than that 
approached through the lower alternative course, will elect to enter 
the latter rather than the former. Thus, if a selective test is applied 
to boys in public elementary schools just before they reach the age 
of twelve, and if those who acquit themselves most creditably are 
free to go on to ordinary secondary schools, while those who do next 
best are entitled to promotion to junior technical schools, experience 
shews that several of the ablest boys (who might, if they chose, enter 
ordinary secondary schools) will prefer to enter junior technical schools 
instead, with the result that an equal number of less able boys will 
become entitled to promotion to ordinary secondary schools. 

No method of selection will be able to compel selected boys and 
girls to proceed, against their will, to the higher type of education 
which they have been selected to receive, if necessary at the public 
expense; and this is especially true of selection applied to young 
persons who have passed the age of compulsory education. It is, 
however, to be hoped that the provision of adequate maintenance 
allowances will remove the economic causes of parental opposition 
to the advancement of able children. It is even more important that 
the parents and their children should realise that it is a pubhc duty 
to cooperate whole-heartedly in any national system for the selection of 
the ablest young people to receive the highest education. Indeed, the 
future of the country, and, in particular, of the national industries, 
depends in no small degree upon the willingness of the ablest young 
Englishmen to subject themselves to the strenuous intellectual 
discipline demanded by a university course of study. When once this 
fact is generally realised, there will be no reason to fear that the 
kind of young men who responded so magnificently to their country's 
call to fight for her will refuse to work for her. 

When we come to classify the types of service which England 



III. 20. 1 TYPES OF SOCIAL SERVICE 325 

(for example) needs, we shall find that a higher degree of 'general 
ability' or 'g' is required for some occupations than for others. 
Selection for promotion to a higher type of education will therefore 
depend, inter alia, upon the degree of 'general ability' possessed by 
the candidates at the stage at which that selection takes place. This 
does not of course imply that, when the very first selection takes place, 
say just before the age of twelve, it will be necessary for an able boy 
to decide whether he aims at becoming a judge or a professor or a 
general (although of late it has been necessary for him to make up 
his mind, even at this early age, if he wishes to become an admiral) ; 
for the educational avenues to all these careers, and to many humbler 
ones, do not begin to fork until a much later age. Indeed, as we shall 
later observe*, boys who are to enter different occupations at, say, 
twenty-two years of age may well have more in common, as regards 
the type of education best suited to their needs at the age of seventeen, 
than have two seventeen-year-old boys of whom one is to enter 
mechanical engineering at eighteen and the other at twenty-two; for 
these last two are really aiming at different occupations, although in 
the same department of industry. That is why a junior technical school, 
intended for boys who are to become apprenticed to engineering trades 
at sixteen, is less suitable than an ordinary secondary school for boys 
who wiU go on to a senior technical school at sixteen with a view to 
entering engineering works two years later. 

§2. Classification of Services. 

For the same reason, as we now enter upon the classification of 
the various kinds of public service, with a view to discussing later 
onf how best to educate a sufficient number of persons selected on 
account of their innate aptitudes for each different kind of work, we 
reject the classification that will probably first suggest itself : namely, 
to classify work of public utility either as industrial or commercial, 
and then to sub-divide industry into its various branches, such as 

* See Chapter 23, below. 

t See below, Chapters 23 and 24. The Council for Organising the British 
Engineering Industry, established in Manchester in 1915 and subsequently amal- 
gamated with the British Engineers' Association, approved a report on Engineering 
Education and Research which was prepared by Mr A. P. M. Fleming of the 
British Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing Company, Dr Miles Walker, 
Professor of Electrical Engineering in the University of Manchester, and the 
present writer, and which followed the method in the text of first classifying 
occupations and the qualities required in each, and then describing a system of 
academic and practical training designed to develop the required qualities in 
a sufftcient number of persons selected on account of their innate aptitudes for 
each different kind of work. 



326 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 20. 2 

engineering, building, chemical manufacture, the textile trades and 
the like. Indeed, the qualities required in the manager of an engineering 
works have more in common with those needed by the manager of 
a chemical works or of a cotton mill, than have the qualities sought 
for in the lowest grades of labour employed in any of these industries. 
In the same way, the designer of electrical machinery will generally 
have less in common with the engineering tradesman* who makes 
what he designs, than with the professional physicist, who would never 
be classed as an engineer. 

We shall find it convenient to adopt the following classification : 

Class A. Leaders in thought and action, including statesmen, 
captains of industry, discoverers and other persons distinguished in 
science or arts or letters : in fact, the modern counterparts of the old- 
time prophets, priests and kings. (In organised industry, 'industrial 
statesmen, 'chief designers, research engineers or chemists, consulting 
engineers and the like, should as a rule belong to this class.) 

Class B. Managers, officials, and others of intermediate rank, who 
occupy positions of responsibility, but not of the first importance to 
the community or to mankind. (Among industrial workers, many works 
managers and heads of departments, together with junior technically 
trained members of the designing, testing, and managerial staffs, 
belong to this class.) 

Class C. Craftsmen, skilled tradesmen and leading hands, in- 
cluding the non-commissioned officers of industry, commerce, 
government, or other branches of national or international service. 
(In organised industry, foremen as well as leading hands and skilled 
tradesmen, will for the most part belong to this class.) 

Class D. Labourers, repetition workers and other unskilled 
persons without specific training for any particular walk in life. 

No essential discontinuities are to be imagined between these 
classes; nor are the occupations named to be regarded as forming a 
complete list of the classes of work they are intended to indicate. 

We have already f remarked that the purposes of the various 
members of every community, and indeed of all communities, should 
be in harmony one with another, and that to this end the central 
elements of the neurography of every citizen should correspond to 
the same central essences of the universe. Moreover, since every 
occupation includes that of citizen, it is clear that, however the single 

* I.e. the skilled craftsman. f See above, pp. 240, 316. 



III. 20. 2 TYPES OF SOCIAL SERVICE 327 

wide interests of different citizens will have to differ according to their 
different occupations*, the single wide interests will also have to 
overlap, so that different individuals may share as far as possible 
each others interests and have at least their interest in the State in 
common. For the present, however, we are not so much concerned 
with whatever is common to our four classes as with their special or 
distinguishing features. 

In order better to focus our discussion on the distinguishing 
features of each of our four types of occupation, it will be convenient 
to pay special attention to the qualities required in industrial occupa- 
tions. But it should be noted at the outset that the characteristic 
qualities, which we shall describe as belonging to those members of 
each class who are engaged in industry, will also belong to those 
members of the same respective classes who are engaged in other 
forms of public service f . 

It is clear that each class is concerned, in the course of daily work, 
with a greater variety oi ideas than the class next below it. Accordingly, 
trains of thought of members of class A must, on the average, be 
fresher, and therefore less governed by habit, than those of members 
of classes B, C or D. 'The controllers of the Great Industry,' writes 
Mr Graham Wallas, ' are always on the look out for that type of man 
whom Americans call "a live wire." For such a man secretaries and 
typists and foremen carry on all that punctual performance of 
habitual acts which took up so much of the time and labour of a 
merchant or manufacturer even fifty years ago. He is set to form 
a habit of non-habituation.' J Such a man requires more emotional 
drive than one who is engaged in mere routine work. And, since his 
ideas cover so wide a range, they are not so naturally associated 
together as those which their daily work brings to members of classes 
B or C or D. He therefore needs to weld his various neurograms into 
a single wide interest-system bymaking voluntary connexions between 
them; and, in order to make such associations, especially between 
dissimilar ideas, he needs 'skill in thinking,' power to concentrate, 
Will, 'g,' or general ability. So class A requires a wider interest 
and more abihty, or skill in thinking — but not necessarily more pay — 
than class B, class B than class C, and class C than class D. 

* See above, p. 232 and pp. 311, 313. 

t The remaining paragraphs of this Chapter are taken, with but slight modi- 
fication, from a paper on Education and Industry read by the present writer to 
the Education Section (L) of the British Association on nth September, 1915, 
in Manchester. 

X The Great Society, p. 87. 



328 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 20. 2 

Let us now look more closely at each of these classes. The first 
named on our list is that of the industrial statesman. We know him 
already as the captain of industry. But he may shortly change his 
name, for the title of captain does not indicate with sufficient clearness 
the fact that the head of a great industrial firm must needs concern 
himself with much that is happening outside the establishments which 
he controls. Not only must he be familiar with the state of the markets 
from which he draws his supplies and in which he disposes of his 
products, but, by grasping the significance of economic, social and 
political changes all over the world, he must be able to foresee 
opportunities for developing his business according to a far-reaching 
policy, and to indicate the lines of technical research which are most 
likely to lead to such developments. Work of this kind involves the 
widest sort of knowledge. But beware of the professional administrator 
who is prepared to administer anything at a moment's notice \ The 
statesman — whether industrial or not — must possess, in addition to 
a wide range of knowledge and much ability, a very special interest 
in the particular concern he is directing, whether that concern is his 
own small business or an Empire whose destinies are under his control. 
He must see that concern as a whole, and must love it. 'Without 
passion,' said Lord Haldane to the students of Edinburgh University, 
'nothing great is or ever has been accomplished.'* 

Lord Haldane went on to compare the statesman with the expert, 
greatly to the latter's disadvantage! . We shall, however, place the 
expert in the same class as the industrial statesman, because the 
former requires an equally high degree of ability or Will, and at least 
as complex (if not so widely varied or so emotional) an interest as 
the latter. The industrial statesman may perhaps be compared to 
the astronomer who uses his telescope to increase his grasp of the 
universe as a whole, while the expert rather resembles the naturalist 
whose microscope enables him to see the parts in great detail. It is 
evident that the successful development of industry demands not 
only the expert in special branches of science or technology (even in 
so narrow a field as that of the methyl-blue chemist whom Lord 
Moulton recently described J), but also the industrial statesman who 
coordinates the work of experts in different fields, being himself 
enough of a specialist fully to understand his experts, to command 

* The Conduct of Life (1914), p. 25. 

I With Lord Haldane's Edinburgh address should be contrasted his speech 
(reported in The Times of 13th July, 1916) in the House of Lords on this country's 
lack of experts. 

% Journal of the Society of Dyers and Colourists, Vol. xxxi, p. 10. 



III. 20. 2 TYPES OF SOCIAL SERVICE 329 

their confidence, and, when necessary, to decide between them. 
Whoever has authority must also have knowledge. 

The members of class B have less need voluntarily to connect by 
reasoning the neurograms which constitute their 'scientific end- 
archies*.' Their skill in mathematics, for example, need only extend 
to what is commonly used, or is hkely to b^ used, in the routine of 
their daily duties: they must be able to follow a paper on some subject 
connected with their work, but need not have had enough practice 
in the use of mathematics to employ it freely upon investigations 
originated by themselves. They need less abihty or 'skill in thinking' 
than members of class A. They require, on the other hand, a very 
wide descriptive knowledge of material things; and as much of this 
knowledge as possible they should have acquired at first hand from 
direct sense impressions. Last, but by no means least, the works 
manager and his immediate assistants need to interest themselves in 
the social and economic welfare — including the further education, 
recreation, and housing — of all their employees ; and this interest will 
help to form the nuclei of the single wide interests which are to 
include all the activities of members of class B. 

Foremen and leading hands have hitherto been generally re- 
cruited from among skilled tradesmen! . They are therefore presumed 
to be qualified themselves to perform every task they have to super- 
vise, and even to perform it better than the men who are actually 
doing the work. Upon this presumption is based the claim that the 
shop foreman must be paid a higher wage than any workman under 
him. This view, accepted as it generally is by employers and employed 
alike, is responsible for no small restriction of output. But it is based 
on a misconception, since the foreman is paid for supervising men, 
and the workman for manipulating material — two quite incommen- 
surate processes. There are, however, signs of change. Technically 
trained foremen, whose wages may (to start with) be less than those 
of the men they have to look after, are already being employed, 
especially in shops where much repetition work is done. Yet it 
remains true that the qualities now most sought for in foremen and 
leading hands are those of the craftsman whose interest is centred in 
his manual work. 

The operative skilled tradesman, whom, for this reason, we have 

placed in the same class as his foreman, is distinguished from the 

machine man in class D, in that the craftsman in class C has a variety 

of skilled work to do, while the members of class D, who may do 

* See above, pp. 228, 231. f See the footnote * on p. 326 above. 



330 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 20. 2 

skilled work, repeat the same process over and over again until its 
performance is governed by habit, when it almost ceases to receive 
attention. On the one hand, ideas connected with doing, like ideas 
associated with a strong instinct, are peculiarly liable to receive 
attention*, so that the work of the skilled tradesman in class C is 
weU able to form a strong centre for his single wide interest. On the 
other hand, ideas connected with the repetition work of class D tend 
to become circumscribed and cut off from other interests. There is, 
however, reason to believe that repetition work is not altogether 
uninteresting to a certain type of mind. It is indeed actually preferred 
by some people, including many women; so that such work may 
form a substantial, if not a dominant, part of an interest that is not 
rich in exciting ideas. 

The remaining part of the single wide interest is of special 
importance in the case of class D. Now that an eight-hours day is 
becoming universal f, it may be that the artisan or labourer, who 
leaves work with much of his day still before him and feeling pleasantly 
exercised rather than unduly tired by his somewhat monotonous but 
by no means exacting labour, will devote himself increasingly to 
the affairs of the community: helping, for example, to solve from 
inside such urgent social problems as that of housing. With that end 
in view, we must see to it that the average member of class D receives 
— not only in maturity through the Workers' Educational Association, 
but also in youth through vocational part-time classes — the kind of 
training which shall best develop a single interest, wide enough to 
include an interest in human brotherhood the world over. So may we 
ensure that the activities which he contributes towards the fulfilment 
of the common purpose of himself and his neighbours, are directed, 
not merely to the prosperity of a particular industrial class, but to 
the well-being of mankind through the advancement of the kingdom 
of God in the minds of all men|. 

* This follows from the Corollary to our Third Law (p. 89 above), in view of 
pp. 59, 60. 

t The International Labour Organisation of the League of Nations met for 
the first International Labour Conference at Washington in November, 1919. 
The organisation consists, according to Chapter xiii of the Peace Treaty, of two 
government representatives, one employers' representative, and one workers' repre- 
sentative from each State Member of the League. The Conference adopted six 
draft conventions and nine recommendations. One of the conventions, probably 
the most important, dealt with the question of the eight hours day and forty-eight 
hours week in industry. This convention was carried in the full conference by 
a majority of eighty-two votes against two. (These facts are quoted from a lecture 
on the International Regulation of Conditions of Labour delivered by Sir Malcolm 
Delevingne at the College of Technology, Manchester, on loth February, 1920.) 

X See above, pp. 306, 311. 



CHAPTER 21 

APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 

FORMULATED IN BOOK II 

§ I. The Power of Education. 

The principal conclusions of our Second Book have now to be applied 
to the problem of developing, in a sufficient number of suitably selected 
persons, the qualities which we have seen to be specially needed in 
each class of public service, so that the system of education with 
which we are concerned in this our Third Book shall produce men and 
women who will be able and anxious to serve each other and the World 
Commonwealth*, and who will realise their best selves in that service. 
So we shall now review some of the principles enunciated in Book II 
and cite further evidence that they fit experience, and especially the 
experience of teachers, and of those men of affairs whose work has 
brought them into close touch with human nature. 

First then we would insist once more upon the power of education ; 
and, in particular, that education really is able to achieve its aim — 
the aim which we have described as that of forming Christian 
characters. 

We have already f quoted Dr Morton Prince's summary of his 
work on The Unconscious, where he says that systems of neurograms 
become a part of the personality, play an important part in deter- 
mining behaviour, and, amongst other things, tend to determine one's 
point of view or attitude of mind, and, as large systems, may become 
sides of one's character. At the same time we quoted from another 
work of Dr Prince the suggestion 'that our characters are wholly 
J, matter of brain associations and that they may be altered for good 
or ill by anything that will bring about a rearrangement of these 
associations,' and in particular by education. Education is concerned 
with bringing about a rearrangement of associations. Indeed, the 
process by which dissociations due to shell-shock | have in so many 
cases been successfully treated in recent years, is often described as 
that of re-education. 

* Cf. pp. 319, 363. In this Chapter we are not, as in the remainder of 
Book III, focussing our attention on England. f See above, p. 292. 

X Cf. Shell Shock, by Professors G. Elliot Smith and T. H. Pear. 



332 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 1 

But it is not in medical literature alone that we have to look for 
evidence of the power of education to make or modify character. 
Lord Sydenham has said* that those who remembered the simple, 
kindly people of the southern German states forty or fifty years ago 
must have been astonished at the radical changes the War had 
revealed. 

The utilization of a large system of education for political purposes has 
(he argued) enabled the ruling classes of Germany to Prussianise the whole 
country within two generations.... The lesson we derive from this sad 
experience is that the power wielded by education is enormous for evil, 
but it must be equally powerful for good, properly handled. 

Dr Lyttelton, when headmaster of Eton, urged that this power of 
education should be more widely recognised in England. 

One of the most staggering facts about the Germans (he said), is that 
they give proofs of the power of a he if it is taught with unanimity and 
consistency and for several years on end. Bad education, in short, if it is 
thorough, is a mighty power for playing havoc with human life. But we 
English, for the last three hundred years, have not really believed that 
education is a power at all. ...If Louvain, Reims, &c., are the outcome of 
falsehoods thoroughly taught, what might be the power of truth if taught 
with equal thoroughness ? f 

Or again, in the words of one of the greatest of English educators : 

The war has proved the enormous power of education over the minds 
and souls of men. Applied with persistence and pedantic pertinacity, it 
is the most formidable engine in the modern world for controlling conduct 
and swaying purpose. England has shrunk from using this power in a 
masterful way.... Our reasons for not putting the power of education to its 
full and most effective use have been partly sound and partly stupid; 
stupid, in so far as we have failed to realize how powerful a dynamo 
education may become; sound, in so far as, for fear of its being misapplied 
by the State, we have deliberately foregone the advantages of using an 
instrument which can be set to cut deep into moral freedom and into 
private judgment on fundamental questions of right and wrong. J 

§ 2. Training the Will. 

If education is to exercise its great power so as to secure the 
greatest good for this nation, or for the whole world, it should 
aim, we said§, at cultivating strong Wills and at cooperating with 

* In January, 1917. 

■)■ Times Educational Supplement, ist August, 1916. 

j Sir Michael Sadler, K.C.S.I., C.B., Vice-Chancellor of Leeds University, 
Times Educational Supplement, 14th January, 1916. 
§ See above, pp. 311, 270. 



III. 21. 2 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 333 

them to develop neurographies in the form of single wide interest- 
systems. Of these two consistent aims — that can best be realised by 
being pursued together* — we first remind ourselves of the cultivation 
of strong Wills by practice in hard thinking. We illustrated f, by 
quotations from Jacobi, Sir Edmund Gosse, Dr Temple and Sir 
Stanley Leathes, how widely accepted is the view that Will, or power 
to concentrate attention, can be increased by practice; or, in other 
words J, that 'g' is educable; and we noted § Dr Webb's direct evidence 
that g can be increased by practice in concentrating attention. 
Further evidence might be multiplied that the increase of ^ by practice 
in concentrating attention fits the experience of practical teachers. 
For example, ' Care must be taken so that at every stage the children 
have work to do, something to bite at that is difficult but just not 

too difficult for them '|| Or again, the dominance of classics in 

English 'public schools' is justified by a public schoolmaster on the 
ground that ' it is easier beyond all question to make a form of thirty 
boys think hard and continuously over a Latin Prose than over any 
other subject. 'f Mr Robinson speaks for many pubhc schoolmasters 
besides himself when he adds that ' up to the ages of sixteen or 
seventeen, the time will be spent most profitably in training a boy 
to think.'** 

But one needs to concentrate upon a subject of study, not only 
in order to increase g, but also in order to deepen one's neurograms 
of that subject. Thus Mr Robinson says, in the article from which we 
have just quoted, 'the quickest way to instruct a boy in the 
careful and considered use of words and sentences is translation from 
another language,' because 'English books... will demand no true 
steady mental effort... offering... merely a soft attractive diet with 
nothing in particular to masticate or digest. No effort of attention 
or concentration is called out by their simple logic' f f Or again. Sir 
Stanley Leathes, tells us that what he found valuable in historical 
education 'came... not by lectures or systematic instruction, but in 
the effort to master and understand the books we were set to read.' J J 

* See above, p. 225, where it is shewn that, other things being equal, Will or 
'g' is best developed alongside of a single wide interest. 

t See above, pp. 137, 138. 

J The identification of the quality whose measure is g with Will, or power 
to concentrate attention, is discussed in Chapter 7 above. 

§ See above, p. 138; and below, Appendix B, § 8. 

I! The New Teaching, p. 262. (Article by James Fairgrieve, M.A., F.R.G.S., 
on Geography.) 

^ Mr C. E. Robinson of Winchester in The Nineteenth Century and After, 
June, 1917, p. 1324. ** Loc. cit. p. 1326. 

tt Loc. cit. pp. 1320, 1321. XX Loc. cit. p. 82, italics mine. 



334 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 3 

§ 3. The Central Purpose. 

The object of education is, we said, to form a single wide interest 
centred in a Christian purpose; and we pointed out that the single 
wide interest that education has to develop is not to be shapeless, 
but to have the very definite form which we described* as endarchical. 
This single wide interest is in fact to be a shapely well-planned 
structure, conforming to a well-thought-out design and, especially, it 
is to be focussed in a central purpose. It is to have, not several foci, 
but one focus f. It is to consist, not of several subjects, but of a single 
comprehensive unity. 

Here too we are in agreement with the experience of leading 
educators. Thus Professor T. P. Nunn observes: 

The architectural consistency and completeness of a curriculum is a 
matter of high importance; its development from the lowest form of a 
school to the highest should be like a piece of continuous thinking, forming 
a logical, well-rounded-o£E whole. One of the worst results of organising 
the teaching in terms of subjects is, indeed, that it makes architectural 
consistency so difficult; that it produces isolated groups of apartments but 
no unitary buildings J . 

We have seen§ further that, in this shapely structure, this single 
wide interest-system, the central elements are the most important, 
for they correspond to the supreme and dominant purpose, to which 
the whole single wide interest should, as we said, be subject. The 
special importance that we have attached to the central Christian 
purpose II is recognised, not only by accepted religious leaders, but 
also, and very widely, by public men who lead in other branches of 
the nation's life and thought. When, for example, the present writer was 
recently discussing the question of engineering training with a group of 
a dozen or more Manchester engineers, and had in passing expressed 
the opinion that the function of the secondary school, through which 
most of the future leaders of engineering industry should pass on 
their way to college, was to foster the growth of true religion, one 
after another of the members of the group took up this question and 
asserted that, in his opinion, religion was intimately connected with 
all that was best in his own business. One of the engineers present 
went so far as to say that he never made any important advance in 
his designs or methods of manufacture without feeling its close 

* See above, Chapter 18; and p. 244. 

f The bearing of this observation upon hobbies and holidays is discussed in 
Appendix D. 

X The New Teaching, pp. 173, 174. (Article on Science.) 

§ On pp. 244 and 311 above. || See above, pp. 306 to 309. 



III. 21. 3 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 335 

relation to his religious life; and it appeared that most, if not all, of 
the other members of the group shared the same experience. 

And the Christian purpose must be central in the single wide 
interest ; it must be related to all the rest of that interest, instead of 
forming a separate interest as is too often the case in practice. 
Accordingly, the managing director of Messrs Cammell Laird and 
Company has thus criticised modern education : 

No one, I think, can fail to notice the tendency to keep moral education 
apart from the rest of the curriculum. The former is confined almost 
entirely to the Sunday sermon in chapel, with possibly an occasional shy 
reference to the subject during Scripture lessons. The consequence is that 
a boy's religious life and his ordinary every-day life are in two separate 
water-tight compartments, and this fatal doubleness of Ufe — this duplicity 
— pursues him to the end of his days, producing that shapelessness of hfe 
which Plato regarded with so much horror. The code of honour that regulates 
his every-day Hfe is derived, not from rehgious teaching, but from the 
cricket field or the football ground*. 

§ 4. The Scientific Endarchy and Organised Thought. 

We turn next to the intermediate zonef of the single wide interest- 
system. This zone corresponds to one's organised thought. Connecting 
the peripheral to the central elements of one's neurography, it 
forms the framework, and, with the central elements, determines the 
form, of the whole structure. After the central elements themselves, 
it is these of the intermediate zone that are the most important; or, 
what amounts almost to the same thing, scientific arrangement of 
knowledge is more important than knowledge of any particular con- 
crete facts J. Education is more concerned with values — the more 
central among endarchically ordered essences — than with facts as 
such§. 

The special importance which we were led to attach to this inter- 
mediate zone — the scientific endarchy, as we previously] | called it — in 
the single wide interest-system, accords with the opinions of experienced 
educators. 

Thus Cardinal Newman, writing in 1852, insisted that this frame- 
work, this philosophy which links all one's knowledge and experience 
together and (especially) to one's central purpose, far surpasses in 
importance any particular section of one's knowledge or experience 
regarded by itself alone. So he writes, with reference to the knowledge 

* Mr W. L. Hichens, in an address on 'Education and Business' delivered to 
the Incorporated Association of Headmasters, on gth January, 191 7. 
I See above, p. 311. % See above, Chapters 11 and 12. 

§ See above, p. 217, especially footnote §. || On p. 228 above. 



336 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 4 

which is to be pursued in education, that 'philosophy must be its 
form, or, in other words, that its matter must not be admitted into 
a mind as so much acquirement, but must be mastered and appro- 
priated as a system consisting of parts related one to another in the 
unity of the whole.' * 

Another publicist, whose writings are probably exercising a 
greater influence on English thought about education than those 
of any other modern author, expresses a similar view when he 
says: 

What should constitute the education of the public man ? This is some- 
thing above and outside his attainments, his accomplishments, his business 
equipment.... These are secondary things.... What is the backbone stuff? 
The answer to-day is surely not essentially different from the answer a 
Greek would have given in the time of Plato. He would have said nothing 
of the importance of compulsory Egyptian or Sanskiit, and equally nothing 
of a knowledge of simples or metal working. But he would have said that 
the backbone stuff must be a clear and critical knowledge of oneself in 
relation to God and to the universe. That, we submit, under modern 
conditions means for an Englishman a thorough study of philosophy and 
of history! . 

It is indeed from such studies, and especially from the study of 
the history of his own particular kind of service to the community, 
that the public man links his scientific endarchy, his expert knowledge, 
to his central Christian purpose, humanity and God. 

§ 5. A Single Wide Interest: not Separate Subjects. 

Now we have seen that education has not only to aim at producing 
a single wide interest|, as its ultimate goal on the neurographic side, 
but has also to give the same form to the growing neurography at 
each stage of its development §. In particular, knowledge is not to be 
imparted to the pupil as several separate subjects to be ultimately 
welded together so as to form a single wide interest ; rather is the 
unity of knowledge, as far as possible, to be insisted upon through- 
out the educative process. Thus we pointed out that the value 
of any given expenditure of effort, whether by teacher or taught or 
by both, decreased rapidly with the number of separate subjects 

* Idea of a University, Discourse 6. Cf. the quotation from G. K. Chesterton 
on p. 296 above. 

t Mr H. G. Wells' Articles on 'The Elements of Reconstruction,' The Times, 
August, 191 6. 

% See above, pp. 311, 244. 

§ See above, pp. 223, 224; especially footnote * on p. 224. 



III. 21. 5 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 337 

upon which that effort was expended*. We even proposed a formula 
for ideally simple cases, and said that, in such cases, the educational 
value of the study of a new department of knowledge was proportional 
to the square of the time during which the study was continued, and 
inversely proportional to the number of separate subjects into which 
that branch of knowledge was sub-divided f . This formula apparently 
fits Sir Stanley Leathes' experience, for he writes: ' If there is historical 
material on the one hand, and literary material on the other, the 
range, interest, and variety of the problems that can be set without 
leaving well-trodden ground may be four times as great as when 
literature is separated from history.' J 

In fact, the single wide interest is not a structure which, like some 
motor cars and other standardised products of manufacture, may have 
its several parts formed separately and assembled only in the last 
stage of the process. Its development is rather to resemble that 
of an organism, the structure remaining single throughout, but 
becoming increasingly integrated, as well as increasingly complex, as 
its development proceeds. Here too we are in accordance with 
educational experience. We have already § seen that many educators, 
from Milton and Goethe downwards, have pointed out that the greatest 
mistake in education consists in teaching subjects in water-tight 
compartments. So soon, in fact, as the period of childhood is ended, 
the school curriculum should combine with experience out of school 
to form a comprehensive unity. To 'assimilate knowledge as part of 
the personality,' || to form a single wide interest, is better than to 
amass knowledge of manifold separate subjects. It is the former, not 
the latter, that makes for an ideal character. 

It is more than half a century since Newman expressed the same 
idea in the words: 

I will tell you what has been the practical error of the last twenty years — 
not to load the memory of the student with a mass of undigested knowledge, 
but to force upon him so much that he has rejected all. It has been the 
error of distracting and enfeebUng the mind by an unmeaning profusion of 
subjects, of implying that a smattering in a dozen branches of study is not 
shallowness, which it really is, but enlargement, which it is not^f. 

* See above, Chapter 11, § 5, especially p. 212. 

t Our formula (see pp. 211 and 212 above) was U cc -^, where U is the edu- 
cational value of an expenditure of effort continued uniformly during a time T, and 
equally distributed between a number, S, of separate subjects. 

J What is Education?, p. 137. 

§ In Appendix A (see especially p. 470 below) referred to above on p. 21. 

II Times Educational Supplement, 14th January, 1916. 
^ Idea of a University, Discourse 6. 



338 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 5 

So again the headmaster of Rugby (Dr David) told the Consulta- 
tive Committee of the Board of Education in 191 1 that a boy who 
had passed the School Certificate examination*, as we now know it, 
' could then be put through a real educational course, without reference 
to examination needs for the rest of his school life ' f ; or, in other words, 
that when boys had passed the proposed fifth form examination, it 
would no longer be necessary for them to study a number of separate 
subjects for examination purposes, so that a higher ideal — 'a real 
educational course' — would become possible. 

Dr David is by no means alone among the headmasters of public 
schools in holding this opinion. For example, the present head- 
master of Eton, when headmaster of Shrewsbury, wrote: 'It is 
obvious that the ordinary public school curriculum is grossly over- 
crowded.' X And yet the number of separate subjects to which 
approximately equal weight is attached, is b}'^ no means so great in 
the public schools, where form-masters still flourish, as in those 
secondary schools of recent foundation where, for the most part, 
specialist teachers take the place of form-masters or form-mistresses. 

We have already seen that Sir Stanley Leathes, who after teaching 
history in Cambridge became chiefly responsible for. the Civil Service 
examinations, is impressed by the waste of educational effort that 
results from separating subjects that ought to be taught as one, 
instead of as many. Thus he points out that ' A man may take many 
"subjects," but every subject will suffer if they are not made to 
interpret and strengthen each other.' § And again he writes: 

Why do we value the best Classical education? Not because Latin and 
Greek are superior to all other languages.... Nor because of the excellent 
drill provided by Greek and Latin grammar and composition... but... the 
humanists of the Renaissance were enthusiasts at once for language, 
literature, and history.... That tradition survives in the best Classical School 
of to-day II . 

Sir Stanley Leathes' experience accords with the findings of Sir 
Joseph Thomson's Committee on 'The Position of Natural Science 
in the Educational System of Great Britain.'^ Their report to the 
Prime Minister states that ' the classical sides have all the advantages 
of a more effective working of the form system than is easily attainable 

* See below, footnote * on p. 387. 

•{■ Report of the Consultative Committee on Examinations in Secondary Schools. 

% A Schoolmaster' s Apology, by the Rev. C. A. Alington, p. 35. 

§ Loc. cit. p. no. II Loc. cit. pp. 116, 117. 

^ Report of the Committee appointed by the Prime Minister to enquire into 
the position of Natural Science in the Educational System of Great Britain, 1918. 
[Cd. 901 1.] 



III. 21. 5 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 339 

on the modern sides, where the work is so much distributed among a 
larger number of masters that no one master sees any group of boys 
for a large part of the school week. The modern sides suffer, in fact, 
from diversity of effort and indefiniteness of aim, and these conditions 
do not make for strenuous work.'* 

Once more, Professor R. L. Archer has recently pointed out that 
courses of study, leading to pass degrees in British universities, com- 
monly differ from honours courses, in that the former are equally 
concerned with several separate subjects, while the latter are more 
coherent, having a single centre of interest, however wide may be 
the range of subordinate, illustrative and connective matter that is 
included in the course. Professor Archer concludes that the education 
provided by pass courses is chiefly inferior to that of honours courses, 
in that 'existing pass courses disperse interest and so destroy it.'f 

Our quotations indicate that the importance we have been led to 
attach to the scientific arrangement of knowledge, so as to form a 
shapely J single wide interest, fits the experience of educators far and 
wide. In short, mere volume of knowledge is comparatively valueless 
unless it is scientifically arranged for handy reference §. Comprehen- 
siveness and coherence of interest are both desirable, and both should 
be pursued together. But, if for a time the two cannot be reconciled, 
coherence must never be sacrificed to comprehensiveness : coherence 
at seventeen is a sure way to comprehensiveness at twenty-seven. 

But while the organisation of knowledge, by building up a shapely 
single wide interest, is the main concern of education on the neuro- 
graphic side, education is also concerned with providing new knowledge, 
supplying new material, and so widening, as well as arranging, the 
pupil's interest. In other words, we are not to forget that, even 
after the elementary or preparatory education of childhood is at an 
end, education has some concern with the unorganised fringe, as well 
as with the intermediate zone (or scientific endarchy), of the growing 
single wide interest. We repeat ||, however, that whole-time education 
in school or college during adolescence and maturity, should be more 
concerned with the organisation of thought than with the widening 
of experience. 

In other words, the concern of education is not with knowledge 
for its own sake. Indeed, to say that anything — education or whatever 
it may be— is desirable 'for its own sake,' is no more than a lazy 

* Loc. cit. p. 12. f The Passman, p. 55. 

X I.e. ' endarchical ' : see Chapter 12 above, especially pp. 231, 244. 

§ Cf. Chapter 11, § 7, and p. 335 above. 

II See above, § 4 of this Chapter, 



340 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 5 

device for avoiding deep thinking. So Dr Alington says that he ' can 
see no reason for wanting to teach either [grammar], or composition 
in foreign languages, to a scientific boy for its own sake.' * Or, as 
Sir Stanley Leathes has it, ' book-learning is only a means to an end.' f 
'True Education,' said Emerson, 'is what remains behind, when all 
that was learnt at school has been forgotten.' J 

§ 6. The Growth of a Single Wide Interest. 

We have already repeatedly observed § that the organisation of 
a single wide interest or ' personal endarchy ' is, in the main, a volun- 
tary process, in which the teacher's Will gradually gives place to the 
pupil's as the latter's education proceeds. We here remind ourselves 
of some aspects of the growth of a single wide interest according to 
the principles arrived at in Book II, and these we then proceed to 
compare with further records of experience. 

The beginnings of' a single wide interest are made, as we said||, 
during infancy and childhood. To this raw material, out of which 
the single wide interest is gradually formed, the manifold experiences 
of adolescence and maturity go on adding. But childhood is mainly 
concerned with the collection of the raw material, ' the recording of 
disconnected facts.' ^ It ' has few organised interests.'** The organisa- 
tion of a single wide interest makes, in fact, very little progress until 
adolescence has begun. But even during childhood, when education 
is more concerned with the acquisition of knowledge than with its 
arrangement, it is also concerned with the formation of the central 
Christian purpose, and with linking that purpose, by means of 
emotional elements, to the unorganised fringe that makes up the 
remainder of the childish neurography: there is httle or no inter- 
mediate zone, corresponding to organised thought, at this stage. 

The age at which the miscellaneous interests of childhood begin 
to become organised varies, like other human characters, from one 
individual to another. There is, however, a general consensus of 
opinion that the change begins with most people somewhere between 
the ages of twelve and fourteen. When, early in the teens, purpose 
begins to come into its own, formal education in school or college has 
to take account of it. It is at this stage that the main concern of 
education on the neurographic side begins to be with the central 

* Loc. cit. pp. 39, 40. t Loc. cit. p. 48. 

{ Quoted in The Ninteenth Century and After, for June. 1917. p- I3i5- 

• See above, e.g. pp. 269 and 271. || See above, p. 245. 

^ Cf . Robert Louis Stevenson in The Wrong Box. 
** W. James, loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 417. 



III. 21. 6 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 34i 

purpose and the intermediate zone of organised thought that is 
centred in it. Thus the medical officer* of the Manchester Grammar 
School told the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education 
that ' The age of fourteen was a very important epoch in a boy's life.... 
He now began really to use his previous acquirements for his own 
conscious ends.' f Dr Rivers, giving evidence to the same Committee 
said that, at about the age of fourteen, a child would be Hkely to 
consider how far a particular school subject — manual training was 
the subject in question — 'stood in any relation to his future career, 
and if he recognised no such relation, the work would probably fail 
to arouse his interest.' X Again, Sir Daniel Hall told the Headmasters' 
Association that, beyond the age of fifteen, ' it was necessary to rely 
on the interest that depended on the subject studied having some 
bearing on the boy's future life.'§ Once more, one of His Majesty's 
chief inspectors of schools || has said that 'A child's interest up to 
twelve is in amassing information ; afterwards he may take an interest 
in scientific method.' Finally, Mr James Strachan, discussing the 
teaching of mathematics, says that 'In the highest classes of our 
schools and universities... as in the ordinary school classes, the process 
of attaching a purpose to the work is adding interest and sanity to 
the whole study.' ^ 

The development of a single wide interest, begun during childhood, 
should make increasingly rapid progress as adolescence proceeds. 
This development should, as we said **,be accompanied by an increase 
of g that measures power to concentrate attention. And, as we also 
pointed out, the increase of g and the formation of a single wide 
interest are mutually consistent processes that should accompany and 
assist each other. For the concentration of attention upon the subject 
of any thought-activity not only increases ff g by oractice in con- 
centrating attention — the only way in which, so far as we could see, 
g can be increased — but also deepens the neurogram of that subject 
and so renders more permanent that part of the growing single wide 
interest-system J J . 

* A. Mumford, M.D.. M.R.C.S. 

t Report on Practical Work in Secondary Schools, p. 358 [Cd. 6849] (evidence 
given on 20th December, 191 1). 

I Ibid. p. 366 (evidence given on 5th June, 1912). W. H. R. Rivers, M.D., 
F.R.S., Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. 

§ A lecture before the Headmasters' Association Sir Daniel Hall, F.R.S., 
reported in The Christian Science Monitor, 21st March, 1917. 

!| Mr H. Ward. ^ The New Teaching, p. 229. 

** See above, pp. 225 and 333. 

tf The justifications for this assumption are discussed on pp. 137, 138, 333 above. 

II Cf. Dr McDougall, quoted above, p. 100, footnote f. 



342 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 6 

The corollary to our third law of thought told us that, of all 
active neurograms, that one which is connected with the widest and 
deepest system tends, other things being equal, to drain the impulse 
from them all*. It follows that connexion with a deep and wide 
interest-system increases the likelihood of a particular neurogram 
becoming excited and so deepened. A pedagogic maxim follows at 
once: namely, that a teacher who wants his pupil to remember any 
fact should see to it that the corresponding neurogram is connected 
to a deep and wide interest-system. Or, since, as we have reminded 
ourselves, no fact is wanted ' for its own sake,' but rather to strengthen 
Will and to help in forming an appropriate wide interest, we should 
rather say that the teacher who is helping his pupil to develop a single 
wide interest, will best ensure this result if he remembers that the 
value f of each new element added depends upon the number of pre- 
Adously existing elements which it connects together for the first time. 

It follows that the process of forming, deepening, and connecting 
together those elements which are to form the most central region 
of the single wide interest-system, and which, on this account, will 
be both deepest and most closely inter-connected, should be begun as 
early as possible. By beginning early in life with a central purpose 
(corresponding to the central elements just discussed), the pupil has 
a reason for all his subsequent studies; and not merely a reason for 
studying, but, as we have just said, an aid to remembering. When 
once this central portion of the growing single wide interest-system 
has begun to be formed, the process of connecting up the whole 
neurography to form a single wide interest-system will better proceed 
by linking (the central and deepest elements of) subsidiary interest- 
systems to the elements of this central region, than by linking the 
subsidiary systems directly to each other. 

We have next to observe that, since the collection of the raw 

material of a single wide interest-system proceeds at first far more 

rapidly than the growth of the organised region of the system, the 

unorganised fringe of every person's neurography is relatively larger 

in early youth, while the organised central region and intermediate 

zone become relatively larger in maturity. The scientific endarchy, 

that forms the inner zones of the complete single wide interest-system, 

will be formed by growth that takes place both inwards and outwards. 

The former is, as we saw J, the normal method of growth of the 

* See above, p. 89. 

t See above, Chapter 11, § 7 See also § 8 of this Chapter, especially pp. 
351 to 353 below. 

I See above, p. 202. 



III. 21. 6 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 343 

endarchy of science, the organised system of human thought to 
portions of which the scientific endarchies of particular individuals 
more or less correspond. This is also the principal direction in which 
every personal endarchy should grow. In other words, the pupil, 
especially in early youth — before he has developed any considerable 
interest in abstract principles which lie nearer the centre of the endarchy 
of science than does the raw material of experience that accumulates 
during childhood — should, in general, approach abstract principles 
through the practical apphcations of those principles. In short, his 
interest in the abstract should, as a rule, grow out of his interest in 
the concrete : he should generally proceed from concrete to abstract. 
Thus Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee consider that : 

In framing a course in Science for boys up to the age of sixteen, it 
should be recognised... that the course should... give special attention to 
those natural phenomena which are matters of every-day experience, in 
fine, that the Science taught in it should be kept as closely connected with 
human interests as possible. The keen interest which many boys feel at 
this age in the applications ol science, such as aeroplanes, steam engines, 
wireless telegraphy, motor cars and the like should be utiUzed to the fullest 
extent. There are great advantages in introducing the study of the principles 
of Science by starting from a machine or a striking physical phenomenon 
and working backwards to the principle, rather than by starting from the 
abstract and proceeding to the concrete; such a method is in no way 
inconsistent with a logical and continuous development of the subject. 
The advantage of the method is that the impetus due to a boy's interest 
in the subject helps to carry him through the lessons, while in the ordinary 
method interest may be aroused [ — i.e. connexion may be made between 
the subject studied and the boy's pre-existing interests — ] only after the 
lessons are nearly completed * . 

But the proverbial pendulum must not be allowed to swing too 
far away from the older method of studying the exact sciences; 
namely, that of proceeding from abstract to concrete; or, in other 
words, of first laying down the abstract principles of the subject 
studied, and afterwards deducing the practical apphcations of these 
principles. Indeed, when once a sufficiently wide and deep interest- 
system, corresponding to the principles of a subject, has been developed 
in a pupil — probably by proceeding inwards from a limited number 
of practical applications of those principles — his knowledge of the 
subject can be more rapidly and effectively extended by proceeding 
downwards and outwards f from these central principles to their 
further applications, than by first studying these further applications 
and from them proceeding, over and over again, inwards to the same 
* Loc. cit. [Cd. goii], p. 23. f See above, p. 202. 



344 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 6 

central principles. Thus, in the eariier stages of the development of 
an interest in a new subject, and therefore in general during childhood 
and eariy adolescence, the interest should grow from outside inwards, 
or from concrete to abstract; while, as adolescence proceeds, and the 
better organised inner regions of the growing single wide interest 
become relatively wider and deeper, the growth of the interest-system 
should, to an increasing extent, take place from inside outwards, or 
from abstract to concrete. In other words, the normal method of 
developing a single wide interest (or that part of it which corresponds 
to any particular subject of study) will consist in beginning with 
a few examples, applications, or concrete experiences * ; proceeding 
from them, by abstraction, to generalisations, laws, principles, and 
on to the highest principles in the single wide interest; and finally 
deducing further applications of these principles and comparing them 
with observations or concrete experiences. We thus summarise, in 
more general terms, the account we have already given of the voluntary 
development of personal endarchiesj by the creation of reasoned 
paths of connexion between apparently disconnected facts. 

We note, in passing, that the differences that exist between the 
mental qualities, and especially between the ^'s, of different persons, 
cause the relative stress that ought to be laid upon the inwards and 
outwards growth of the personal endarchy to vary widely between 
different individual pupils. There are, for example, pupils nearly all 
of whose knowledge of mathematics or mechanics should be acquired 
by the inwards growth of their interests : that is, by proceeding from 
the concrete to the abstract. And there are others — generally persons 
with higher g's, greater powers of concentrating attention — whose 
time would be largely wasted were they compelled to trouble them- 
selves with the practical details of manifold applications before pro- 
ceeding to abstract the principle or law that all these applications 
are intended to illustrate, and are indeed required to illustrate before 
less able boys and girls can fully grasp the meaning of the laws or 
principles in question. When we come to discuss the types of education 
that are best adapted to pupils of different grades of ability, we shall 
illustrate this difference in the method by which the same subject, and 
the same part of it, should be studied in different educational courses J. 

* See above, p. 233, where we noted that all abstracts ought to connect to 
some concretes. For example, as we said, children should have seen at least one 
river before learning about rivers in general. f See above. Chapter 14. 

J See below, § 8 of this Chapter. For example, the Pythagorean theorem 
may be differently approached, on the one hand by thirteen-year-old boys re- 
ceiving senior elementary education, and, on the other, by boys of the same age 
receiving junior secondary education (see Chapter 23). The former will be likely 



III. 21. 6 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 345 

While, as we have more than once repeated*, the development of 
a single wide interest-system is in the main a matter of Will — at 
first the teacher's and later the pupil's — we must not forget the 
exceedingly important part which predominantly emotional interests 
play in involuntary thinking. The voluntary development of a single 
wide interest-system must therefore take account of these emotional 
interests, and see to it that they are made to form part — and a very 
important part — of the single interest which education is concerned 
with developing; for any portion of the growing neurography — and, 
in particular, the organised scientific endarchy, with the formation 
of which secondary and university education is so largely concerned — 
may be deepened by being connected with emotional interests f. 
Thus the student of the mathematical theory of probability who 
is concerned with problems about drawing marked balls from a 
bag, will think more effectively about his problem if the balls he 
imagines are attractively coloured; or a student of hydrodynamics 
may make more progress with his study if he works near a win- 
dow overlooking a seascape that fills him with emotion. Or, to 
take a less trivial example, it is well, other things being equal, to 
study a subject in the closest possible relation to one's main purpose 
in life; for this, as we saw, should be the widest and deepest emotional 
interest of all. Thus the student whose ordinary employment 
occupies the greater part of his time — or, as we shall call him for 
brevity, the part-time student — will generally be well advised to 
study mathematics, or any other subject, in close connexion with the 
applications of that subject to the employment in which he is con- 
tributing to the progress of the Commonwealth. Of the value of this 
maxim there can be no doubt in the mind of anyone who has personal 
experience of the extraordinary efficiency that so often marks part- 
time education as hitherto provided in England. For part-time 
education that is intimately related to concurrent part-time employ- 
ment ministers to the same growing interest: the interest awakened 
in school is kept awake during the remainder of the week by the 
experiences of the workshop or other field of service, and so goes on 
developing without interruption. Moreover, such part-time education 
explains much that would otherwise be meaningless in the student's 

to treat it as the 47th proposition of the first book of EucUd; but the latter 
may be willing to accept as an empirical fact that the square on the longest side 
of a right-angled triangle is as big as the sum of the two squares on the shorter 
sides, at least in all the cases they have weighed and measured, and therefore 
presumably (and they may be content to leave it at that) in every other case as 
well. * From p. 269 above. f See above, p. 89. 



346 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 6 

employment; he is therefore anxious to obtain all that he can from 
his part-time teacher, and so gives him his concentrated attention. 

But, if the fullest advantage is to be taken of the close connexion 
that may obtain between part-time studies and the student's interest 
in his daily work, it is necessary that the part-time teacher should 
share that interest, and if possible have had personal experience of 
the work to which his students are giving the greater part of their 
time. This principle is of more importance* in its application to 
junior part-time students who expect to be taught by their teachers, 
than in its application to advanced part-time students who do not 
so much expect passively to receive instruction as actively to seek 
it from a master of the subject. 

It is for a similar reason that, as we have saidf, the younger 
pupils in a secondary school should spend a large proportion (which 
should, in the lowest forms, exceed one-half) of their school time with 
the same form-master or central teacher, between whom and his pupils 
close personal relations will thus be likely to develop, so that the 
knowledge he imparts will automatically and immediately be con- 
nected to wide and deep interests in his pupils' minds. Moreover, if 
this form-master or central teacher himself possesses a single wide 
interest, so that he sees life steadily and sees it whole, the connexions 
that exist between his thought-activities are likely to produce 
corresponding connexions in his pupils' neurographies, and so to 
assist in developing in each of them an interest that will be single 
as well as wide. It is, of course, true that this important means of 
securing unity or coherence of interest, instead of the multiplicity of 
separate subjects that too often takes its place in modern secondary 
schools, may involve some sacrifice in the proficiency of the teacher 
in some of the subjects which he has to teach. But, important 
as is the closest possible correspondence between the endarchy of 
science and the pupil's scientific endarchy, it is by no means necessary 
to ensure this correspondence by requiring that the beginnings of 
any subject — peripheral essences of a particular subject endarchy, or 
sector, of the endarchy of science J — should be presented by a teacher 
who has specialised upon the inner essences of the same sector, the 
most abstract principles of the subject taught. 

The future historian, for example, will not necessarily best secure 

* Compare Section V of the Board of Education memorandum on the staffing 
of continuation schools, where emphasis is laid upon the importance of the personal 
relation between teacher and taught, especially in the earlier years (14 to 16) of 
continuation school work. [Circ. 1102, dated 4th April, 1919] 

f See above, p. 270. J See above, Chapter 11, § 6. 



III. 21. 6 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 347 

a knowledge of mathematics, that will take its properly subordinate 
place in his single wide interest-system and have its right relation 
to the central purpose of his life, by studying under the most eminent 
mathematician available; for the latter may well have almost lost 
whatever interest he ever possessed in any mathematical knowledge 
that the historian is ever likely to have time to acquire. This is no 
reason why the mature historian should not endeavour to understand, 
for example, the problem of relativity that may be exercising the 
minds of the most eminent among mathematicians. But it is a reason 
why a schoolboy whose main interest is in history, should learn 
mathematics from a teacher who is qualified rather by his sympathy 
with the boy's interests than by his distinction as a mathematician. 
Unfortunately, however, many modern secondary schools altogether 
ignore this principle, actually refusing to allow boys of thirteen to 
be taught history and English by the same master, even when the 
teacher of history — or the teacher of English — happens to be called 
their form-master (merely because they keep their books in his class- 
room, although they do not spend more time with him than with 
any one of five or six other specialists) ! 

The most familiar example of the principle here in question is 
furnished by so-called religious instruction. Very few teachers will 
nowadays fail to recognise that the development of the most central 
elements of a pupil's single wide interest-system, the elements that 
correspond to the central spiritual essences of the universe, can better 
be presented by a parent or house-master or form-master who shares 
the boy's interests, than by an expert in theology, or a religious 
enthusiast, who gives religious instruction and nothing else, and who 
does not know the boy. Indeed, religious teaching — teaching with the 
aim of forming the central Christian purpose — must belong to parents 
and to central teachers; it must permeate the whole teaching* until 
the pupil reaches an age at which he, rather than his teacher, directs 
his education; and it must include the practice of the dictates of 
brotherly love, not only in loyalty to schoolfellows, but, as time goes 
on, in service to a wider society outside school or college. 

Another example of the same principle is furnished by the teaching 
of English, a subject which should always be taught to younger boys 
and girls by their form-master or form-mistress rather than by a 
specialist who teaches English and nothing else. As Sir Stanley 
Leathes says, 'Every don should constitute himself a professor of 

* Cf. Chapter 17 above, especially p. 296. Cf. also Dr Temple's Presidential 
Address to Section L of the British Association (Newcastle, 1916), p. 11. 



348 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21.6 

English.'* Or, as Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee have it, 'The 
science master cannot be allowed to repudiate responsibility for the 
English in which the work of his class is written.' f 

So, too, when the teaching of natural science has become more 
general, so that classical form-masters are less ignorant of it (and 
more appreciative of the intense human interest that belongs to it), 
the physical and biological sciences taught at school to those boys 
in whose interest-systems the elements that correspond to natural 
science will never be central, should be taught by the form-master, 
even a classical form-master J. And, as Sir Joseph Thomson's Com- 
mittee point out, it is to be hoped that in future every boy will 
study science at least until he reaches the age of sixteen. 

Without insisting, as we have insisted, that the greater part of 
the curriculum in the earlier teens should be entrusted to a single 
teacher §, Professor Nunn applies the same principle in a less exacting 
way by urging close cooperation between persons who teach different 
subjects to the same boys. Professor Nunn goes on to say that 

The curriculum in science, geography and mathematics should be 
thought out as a whole. There is only one way of bringing about effective 
co-ordination of this kind; the teachers of these subjects must meet from 
time to time in conclave to adjust their frontiers and regulate their politics. 
It should be regarded as unthinkable that any one of them should go his 
own way without constantly taking account of the needs and proceedings 
of his colleagues ||. 

* Loc. cit. p. 122. f Loc. cit. p. 26. 

X That classical form-masters can, even to-day, successfully undertake the 
teaching of ' science for all ' has been proved by Mr Eggar, of Eton, who, at a recent 
meeting of the Association of Public School Science Masters described how a block 
of 200 boys had been taught astronomy, light and sound by classical masters. 
Two hours a week had been given to these studies. One of these hours had been 
occupied by the classical form-master. During the remaining hour the whole 
block, including the classical form-masters, came together to the big lecture room 
for joint instruction. The classical masters had, according to Mr Eggar, taken 
very kindly to the experiment, and the boys and masters had alike taken a great 
interest in it. Mr C. L. Bryant, of Harrow, added that he had examined these 200 
Eton boys, and that, for boys at the age of fourteen and a half, their examination 
papers were extraordinarily well done. ' So far as the experiment went the result 
had been a success.' (See The Times Educational Supplement, 2nd January, 1919.) 

§ Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee 'agree... with the view expressed in one 
of the answers to a questionnaire which we sent to the Mathematical Association 
that the best method of securing coordination of the work in mathematics and 
science is to assign the teaching of mathematics and physics argely to the same 
teachers.' (Loc. cit. p. 33.) 

II Loc. cit. p. 179. Such meetings as Professor Nunn suggests, least frequently 
occur, but are by no means least required, in the case of part-time education, 
where it often happens that the teachers, as well as the students, are engaged during 
the greater part of the week in some other employment, and where the several 
teachers of different subjects to the same group of part time students pursuing 
the same course of study, may not even know each other by sight ! 



III. 21. 7 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 349 

§ 7. Continuity in Education. 

A system of education that extends from the nursery to the 
university, and includes within its scope the practical training that 
is given by works or business houses or public offices to their younger 
employees, will not be likely to develop a single wide interest, unless 
the education it provides is continuous. Each type of education should 
prepare for that which the pupil will next receive. The curriculum 
in every school or college should shade into that which follows in 
the next educational institution, while that of the last whole-time 
school or college should prepare specifically for the occupation that 
comes after, continuity between whole-time school or college and 
whole-time employment being preserved by means of a transitional 
period of part-time education. 

The principle of continuity in education follows from the principle 
of the single wide interest, which in turn follows, as we said, from 
the corollary to our third law of thought. And this principle of 
continuity is widely recognised in the abstract. Thus, for example, 
the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education, after stating 
that manual work in modern infants' schools is suddenly discontinued, 
remark that ' this abrupt transition cannot be sound.' * 

Continuity in education has a two-fold aspect: looking forward 
and looking backward. The educator who knows what kind of 
experiences his pupils are likely to receive when soon they leave his 
care, can prepare each of them to absorb these new experiences into 
his single wide interest, so as to widen and deepen that interest, 
instead of producing the beginnings of new and separate interests. 
The university lecturer to engineering students, who keeps himself in 
close touch with works practice, can prepare his undergraduate 
students to make the most of the practical works training that is to 
follow their graduation. The same principle is as applicable to the 
education of boys or girls who are about to be transferred from school 
to college, or from one school or course to another, as to that of young 
people whose whole-time education is about to cease. Thus the sixth- 
form master of a higher secondary school who preserves close touch 
with university work, and is qualified at any time to accept a university 
lectureship t, can make the advanced secondary education with which 

* Report on Practical Work in Secondary Schools, 1913 [Cd. 6849], p. 6. 

t More than twenty years ago such transfers already occurred. The present 
writer remembers the two masters who taught the highest classical forms at his 
school, leaving in quick succession, one to become an Oxford college tutor, and 
the other to become a fellow and lecturer of a Cambridge college. 

G E. 23 



350 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 7 

he is concerned lead continuously on to the undergraduate honours 
courses which his boys are about to enter. 

But the preservation of continuity demands that educators shall 
take account of the work their pupils have lately been doing, as well 
as of that which they are about to do. So the sixth-form master of 
the higher secondary school must take account of the fifth-form work 
that has preceded, as well as of the undergraduate studies that are 
to follow, his teaching. In the same way, the works training that 
follows an undergraduate course in engineering is most effective when, 
as in some modern engineering works, it is directed by an Apprentice 
Master* who is himself in close touch with the universities from which 
his 'college apprentices' have come. And, in general, the more a teacher 
knows of the interests with which his pupils come to him, and the 
more use he makes of that knowledge in connecting and widening 
those interests, the better progress will he make towards the goal of 
developing a single wide interest in each of his pupils. 

The principle of continuity, especially in its forward aspect, 
was recognised by the Consultative Committee of the Board of 
Education who wrote: 'The nearer a pupil is to his entrance into 
life, the more steadily must the actual practical needs of his occupation 
be kept in view, and the more decided therefore must be the bent of 
his education to that end.' | Or, in the words of a report J adopted by 
the Council for Organising British Engineering Industry in 1916, 
'The last two or three years of every person's whole-time education 
should have the specific aim of preparing him for his particular walk 
in life so far as that can be foreseen. We are not asking for purely 
vocational training, and we do not suggest that during these last 
two or three years education should be unduly specialised. Our 
desire is rather to see a coherent curriculum in which every subject 
is linked to every other because they are all taught in close relation 
to the student's future activities, both vocational and social' § (in- 
cluding not only the work by which he earns his living, but all the 
work that is his life — the whole of what Kim would call his ' Great 
Game ') ; and, as we may add, to the central purpose of his life that 
should direct all these activities. 



* 'It must be remembered however that the great defect of the pupil system 
in engineering works is that as a rule no one is responsible for the necessary 
theoretical training; it is often left to chance.' Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee's 
Report, p. 48. (See also below, p. 408.) 

t Report on Higher Elementary Schools (1906), p. 11. 

X See above, footnote f on p. 325. 

§ Report on Engineering Education and Research, p. 14. 



III. 21. 8 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 351 

§8. Contrasted Types of Study. 

The principle of continuity in education thus demands a difference 
between the type of study pursued by those, on the one hand, who 
intend to make its pursuit their principal occupation for many years 
to come, and by those, on the other hand, who are about to discontinue 
the study in question, or at least to devote to it only a comparatively 
small proportion of their time. 

It is important to discover wherein this difference of type consists. 
To this end we first remind* ourselves that the personal endarchies 
of different individuals are often very different. So different indeed 
may these personal endarchies be that an element, which is nearf the 
centre of one man's single wide interest-system, may correspond to 
an essence of which the neurographic correlative is peripheral in a 
second man's neurography, while it may be altogether absent from 
that of a third. Thus, to the same essences of the endarchy of science % 
there may correspond elements having very different positions in 
different personal endarchies, and therefore different values § to the 
several persons in question. Clearly then the value of an essence to 
a particular person depends, not only upon the (impersonal) value of 
the same essence in the endarchy of science, but also upon the particular 
regions of the endarchy of science that are selected || and more or 
less short-circuited ^ for neurographic reproduction in the particular 
personal endarchy in question. 

So we distinguish types of study, not only according to the 
(impersonal) values of the essences studied, but also according to the 
(personal) values which those essences are going to have to the students. 
In other words, a type of study is marked, not only by the values of 

* See above, Chapter 12, §§ 3, 4, especially pp. 232 and 235. 

t See above, p. 242. % See above, p. 195. 

§ See above, p. 194. It will be remembered that the value of an essence to 
any one of us personally was there stated to be greater or less according as our 
neurogram for it was deeper or shallower; and therefore, in the case of persons 
whose neurographies possess the endarchical organisation of single wide interest- 
systems, according as the corresponding neurogram is more or less central ; and, 
in any case, according as the essence in question is more or less frequently thought 
of by the particular person concerned. Similarly on a later page (217) we concluded 
that the (impersonal) value of an essence in the endarchy of science was measured 
by the frequency with which it occurred in the world of experience or in reasoned 
thought about it. Since the relative frequency with which a particular essence 
occurs in the world of experience, or in all men's reasoned thought about it, is by 
no means equal to the relative frequency with which that essence is thought of 
by any particular person, it is clear that, as stated in the text, the value of an 
essence to any particular person is by no means necessarily proportional to the 
(impersonal) value of the essence in the endarchy of science. 

II See above, pp. 194 and 267. ^ See above, pp. 230 and 237. 

23—2 



352 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 8 

the essences studied, but also by the values that the corresponding 
elements are going to have in the students' single wide interest- 
systems. For example, we recognise a difference in type between the 
study of abstract principles and the study of concrete facts of direct 
experience, the essences studied in the first case being more central 
in the endarchy of science, and therefore more valuable, than the 
essences studied in the second; and we also recognise a difference in 
type between the study of one and the same group of essences by 
one student, in whose personal endarchy the corresponding elements 
are going to be more or less central, and by another student, in 
whose personal endarchy the corresponding elements will remain 
peripheral*. In either case, the difference in type depends only upon 
differences of value, and not upon other differences between the facts 
studied f. In short, as we said before in another connexion, the kind 
of difference in type of study with which we are here concerned is a 
question not of facts but of values J . 

Since, however, the intermediate zone that corresponds to the 
organised thought of one who is expert in some particular branch 
of knowledge, will, as we said§, correspond as closely as possible to 
a branch of the endarchy of science, those elements which are more 
central in our expert's scientific endarchy will, in so far as they 
correspond to essences of his own special subject, be more or less 
central according as the corresponding essences are more or less 
central in the endarchy of science. And, in general, elements of high 
value in that region of the endarchy of science which is most nearly 
reproduced neurographically in anybody's single wide interest- 
system, will there be represented by elements of high value; so that, 
whoever studies the more central abstract essences of a subject in 
which he is to become expert, will be studying essences that are not 
only of high (impersonal) value, but will also be of high value to him 
personally. So the type of study that is specially concerned with 
the more central essences of a subject in which the student is to 
become expert, is a type that is marked by the essences' high values, 

* E.g. the principles of biology are more central in the single wide interest 
of a naturalist than in that of a theologian, and the principles of economics ought 
perhaps to be more central in the single wide interest of a Chancellor of the 
Exchequer — or, rather, of his permanent advisers in the Treasury — than in that 
of the Prime Minister for the time being. 

f Or, using our diagram (Fig. i6) on p. 204 to represent the endarchy of science, 
and employing polar coordinates with the centre of the diagram as origin, we may 
express this result by saying that a difference in type of study depends upon a 
difference of zone rather than a difference of sector — a difference in the radial, 
rather than in the angular, coordinate. 

J See above, footnote § on p. 217 and p. 335. § See above, p. 232. 



III. 21. 8 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 353 

both impersonal and personal. Being near the centre of the student's 
single wide interest-system, the corresponding elements will be 
deep, closely inter-connected, coherent; and, being comparatively 
central in the endarchy of science, the same essences will be abstract 
and will belong to a narrow region of that endarchy. On the other 
hand, the essences that form the unorganised periphery of a single 
wide interest will, as we saw, belong in large measure to concrete facts 
of direct experience, facts that may have little coherence but that 
will cover a very wide region of the endarchy of science. 

Here we pause for a moment to illustrate the use of contrasted 
types of study in the system of education with which we are 
concerned. We have said* that, as education builds up a single wide 
interest in the pupil, he should first pay attention to facts of experience. 
From these he should be led, as soon as possible, to abstract laws 
and principles, the more central essences in the endarchy of science. 
From these again he may be led to abstract still more central essences : 
laws, principles, and generalisations. All the time he is to be connecting 
these abstractions with his central purpose, on the one hand, and with 
facts of experience, on the other. As the end of whole-time education 
approaches, the abstractions to which he has been giving so much 
attention (and so has had the best opportunity of increasing! 'g,' his 
power of concentrating attention) have to be closely related to his 
particular purpose in Ufe, and to those principles that underlie the 
practice of the occupation he is about to enter. 

Thus, for example, the undergraduate course in engineering that 
is being followed by one who is about to enter the works in which, 
as a college apprentice |, he is to continue his engineering training, 
should be concerned with the relation of engineering to human society 
(in overcoming material obstacles to human progress), and so to God. 
It must also include a study of the principles of mechanics, physics 
and other pure sciences that have been applied to engineering. That 
is to say, it should connect to one another, and to the central purpose 
of the student's life — his purpose to serve God and man as an engineer 
— a number of essences that belong to different branches of the 
endarchy of science, and whose connexions in that endarchy may not 
have been completely discovered, or, if they have, may have to be 
short-circuited § in the engineer's scientific endarchy ||. Such short- 

* See above, pp. 233 and 344. 
•f See footnote ff on p. 341 above. 
X See below, pp. 408, 409, 431. 
§ See above, pp. 230 and 237. 
II See above, p. 228. 



354 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 8 

circuiting is justified at the conclusion of whole-time education, and 
at whatever age whole-time education ends, by the fact that time 
does not permit the future engineer (or indeed the future citizen of 
whatever occupation) to master in its entirety all that has been 
discovered concerning every branch of knowledge with which his 
future occupation will have some connexion*. Moreover, this process 
of short-circuiting that the student of engineering must apply to the 
principles, laws, and generalisations of those branches of natural 
science into which he will have to go relatively deeply, should also 
be applied to his studies in other fields of knowledge with which his 
acquaintance has to be wide rather than deep. Such time as he can 
devote to the literature of ancient Greece and Rome may exercise a 
greater influence upon his character and conduct if that literature is 
welded into his single wide interest by being studied in good English 
translations than if it is confined to a separate interest, of which the 
greater part is made up of Greek and Latin grammar and rules of 
syntax that form essential parts of the school studies of the 
classical boy. And 'could not the classical or literary student learn 
more of the scope and utility of Mathematics if the subject were 
presented to him with fewer artificial divisions, and if he were not 
required to work through several hundred examples in Algebra 
before he is permitted to know the meaning of Trigonometry, or the 
application of the simplest branches of Mathematics to the everyday 
problems of mechanics or physics? By the student who aims at 
classical scholarship or at high attainments in Mathematics, years 
may profitably be devoted to the grammar of the subject ; the applica- 
tion and the reward will follow later.' 

The summary of Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee's Report, from 
which this quotation is made, continues: 

Precisely the same argument may be applied to the teaching of Natural 
Science as it has been practised during the last few years in most of the 
schools. Teachers have had in view exclusively the preliminary training 
of scientific men, and not the desirability of inspiring students of Classics, 
Mathematics, English or other subjects — students who will form the 
majority of future statesmen, politicians, public administrators and men 
of business — with an appreciation of science for the sake of its human 
interest and its vast services to society. The teacher of Science has followed 
too closely the example of the classical master. The foundations of the 
subject are laid with equal care, whether any super-structure is to be 
erected upon them or not; and it has not been fully considered that a 
cottage completed and ready for occupation may be of more value to the 

* See above, p. 227. 



III. 21. 8 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 355 

community than the foundations of a palace which have never been carried 
above the damp-proof course*. 

So much then by way of illustrating f our principle that, if educa- 
tion is to develop a single wide interest, there must be two distinguish- 
able types of education, and two distinguishable ways J in which one 
and the same subject should be studied by those, on the one hand, 
whose whole- time education, or whose study of that particular subject, 
is to continue for manj^ years to come, and by those, on the other, 
who are about to discontinue whole-time education, or their study 
of the particular subject as the case may be. While, as we have just 

* Ministry of Reconstruction Pamphlet, entitled Reconstruction Problems 26 : 
Natural Science in British Education, p. 2. 

t See above, p. 353. We here resume the discussion there interrupted for 
purposes of illustration. 

X This distinction is emphasised in the following reply (dated 191 7) by the 
present writer to a question circulated by Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee 
before issuing their Report. 

Question. To what extent is it desirable that a somewhat prolonged elementary 
training in Science, with laboratory work, should have been an obligatory part 
of the Secondary School Education of all students at some time previous to their 
entering the University, and does this apply to the needs of all Faculties? 

Answer. It is desirable that all freshmen, entering a university through the 
normal avenue of the secondary school, should have received some training in 
Science, including laboratory work. 

But the science training given at school to those who are to study Science or 
Applied Science (including Medicine) in the university should differ in kind, as 
well as extent, from that of the students entering other Faculties. The school 
Science of the former should, after an introductory course of the kind described 
below, include a large proportion of laboratory work, and a more exact study in 
a limited range under teachers who have specialised in that limited range of study 
and are qualified to teach it in a university. The school training of the latter— the 
non-science boys or girls — should be extensive rather than intensive, inspirational 
rather than informational. It should be concerned with a few wide generalisations, 
and the particular phenomena discussed should be such as best illustrate these 
general ' laws,' and, as far as possible, such as also make a strong emotional appeal. 
Thus, the school study of Science by boys (or girls) on the classical or other non- 
science 'sides' should cover a wide range of Sciences — Astronomy, Geology, 
Physiography, and Biological Sciences, and even Experimental Psychology, as 
well as the Physics and Chemistiy intensively studied on the Science side — and 
should emphasise the bearing of natural knowledge on all branches of human 
activity. A similar course adapted to the interests of the younger students would 
well serve as an introduction to the study of Science by boys (or girls) on the 
science side. 

The Joint Matriculation Board of the Northern Universities has recently 
decided to provide a paper in General Physical Science alternative to papers in 
Mechanics, Physics and Chemistry. For some years past the Board has provided 
a paper in General Biological Science alternative to papers in Botany and Zoology. 
Thus provision is made for testing in two different ways the knowledge of Science 
which, on the one hand, literary candidates should possess as part of their general 
education, and, on the other, that introductory systematic knowledge which 
Science candidates ought to possess of their own special subjects. 

It has in the past been too commonly supposed that Science for literary boys 
should consist of the science boys' course, so truncated as to deprive it of almost 
all interest. 



356 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 8 

seen, the concluding stage of whole-time education should be con- 
cerned with the relation and application of earlier abstract studies 
to the central purpose and the practical work of the student's future 
walk in life, the middle period of whole-time education — especially 
in the case of people whose whole-time education is to be so prolonged 
that this middle period occurs in later adolescence — should be more 
concerned with the intensive study of a limited region of the endarchy 
of science, and with the mastery of the laws, principles, and generali- 
sations that belong to a particular branch of that endarchy, than with 
the short-circuiting of endarchy-of-science paths (so as to enable the 
varied experiences of the prospective walk in life to be readily welded 
into the single wide interest that has begun to be formed by the 
preceding study of principles and their relation to the most central 
essences of all). In other words, the special concern of the middle 
period of whole-time education, at least if it occurs in later adolescence, 
is to secure coherence in the educand's* growing interest by making 
it correspond as closely as possible with one of the most central and 
most completely organised regions of the discovered portion of the 
endarchy of science: we are reminded f of the special importance of 
correspondence between the educand's neurography and the more 
abstract portion of the region of the endarchy of science with which 
his experience will be concerned. In developing a single wide interest, 
this 'transitional' type of education is to emphasise the singleness 
rather than the width ; it is to aim at coherence % rather than at com- 
prehensiveness ; its concern is with the central (rather than with the 
peripheral) portions of the single wide interest that it is beginning to 
develop ; with the effective handling of large general ideas ; with giving 
the same name to different objects, Poincare's definition of the 
function of mathematics §; with abstract conceptions; and with the 
roots of things. But they must be the roots of the right things. 
Nothing is more deadening than the acquisition of a mass of abstract 
ideas to which subsequent experience never connects a large body of 
illustrative concrete facts that give life and meaning to the abstrac- 
tions 1|. Nothing is more deadening than the abstract study of several 
separate subjects having no relation to the centre of one's interest. 

* We use the word ' educand ' here and on the following pages rather than the 
more familiar word ' student ' because the latter word suggests a person who has 
passed the age of secondary education, whereas Professor Adams' word ' educand ' 
(see above, p. 12) is equally applicable to the person being educated whatever 
his or her age may be, and whatever the stage of education he or she may have 
reached. 

t See above, p. 267; also p. 215. % See above, p. 353. 

§ Poincare, loc. cit. p. 34. Cf. p. 199 above. || Cf. p. 233 above. 



III. 21. 8 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 357 

And, as we said, the more learnedly such subjects are taught by expert 
but independent teachers, the more deadening their influence is hkely 
to be. Or, as Professor Whitehead observed in a remarkable presidential 
address to the Mathematical Association : 

Education with inert ideas is not only useless: it is, above all things, 
harmful — Corruptio optimi, pessima. Except at rare intervals of intellectual 
ferment, education in the past has been radically infected m ith inert ideas. 
That is the reason why uneducated clever women, who have seen much of 
the world, are in middle life so much the most cultured part of the com- 
munity. They have been saved from this horrible burden of inert ideas. 

To attempt, in (whole-time) school or college, to grow the abstract 
roots of several disconnected subjects that will not go on growing 
when once that school or college has been left behind, is to multiply 
the inert ideas that prevent the realisation of one's best self and that 
hinder effective service to the community. 

On the other hand, abstract conceptions, acquired at school or 
college by young people whose walk in life brings them experiences 
to which those abstractions are naturally related, will form the very 
roots and branches of the single wide interest that education should 
aim at developing*. In fact, the right kind of abstract study during 
whole-time education unifies the miscellaneous experience of later life 
and makes it usable. It coordinates masses of practical details by 
exhibiting them as particular cases of a few underlying principles f. 

So there is one way of studying matters from which the single 
wide interest is to go on growing outwards for a long time to come, 
until the matters in question lie near the intense centre of that 
interest; and there is quite another way of studying whatever is to 
form the interest's fainter fringe. The latter type of study, though 
it may be nearer its beginning than the former, is certainly much 
nearer its end. Or, taking the materio-centric instead of the paedo- 
centric point of view, one and the same subject should be studied in 
two quite different ways, by those, on the one hand, who are to 
become expert in it and make it their own, and by those, on the other, 
who are content to remain amateurs in regard to it. 

The difference between the learned way in which one should 
know a subject in which one has to be expert, and the amateurish, 
cultured way in which one has to know other subjects, is illustrated 
by Sir Stanley Leathes' observation that 'Professors are men of 
learning, but they should not aspire to create men in their own image 
— to usurp the Divine prerogative.' J To put the matter in another 

* Cf. above, p. 311. t Cf. above, p. 267. J Loc. cit. p. 151. 



358 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION IIL 21. 8 

way, it is the business of an expert in a subject to have it near the 
centre of his interest and to know it; while an amateur in regard to 
it need not know the subject, but should know about it, being content 
to give it a less central place in his single wide interest. One important 
neurographic difference between knowing a thing and knowing about 
a thing is that the expert's neurograms correspond to many, if not 
all, of the discovered essences of that thing, while the amateur's 
neurograms correspond only to comparatively few of these essences. 

This difference may be further illustrated* from the personal 
experience of the present writer. When he was transferred from the 
classical to the mathematical side of his school, he did not begin to 
study algebra at the stage he had reached in the mathematical forms 
of the classical side, where the study of mathematics was nearing 
its end. Instead, he went back to the beginning of algebra and 
set about mastering abstract conceptions, which would have formed 
mere inert ideas in the mind of a classical boy, but which the future 
student of mathematics would be frequently using for many years 
to come. The way in which mathematics should be studied on the 
classical side, is an example of the ' terminal ' way in which it should 
be studied where its study is approaching completion. The very 
different way in which the same subject should be studied on the 
mathematical side, illustrates the different method of studying central 
subjects in the coherent curriculum that ought to characterise the 
middle, or 'transitional,' period of whole-time education, a coherence to 
which subsequent terminal courses and part-time classes will add 
comprehensiveness . 

Still further to illustrate the difference between the finishing 
whole-time courses that we have described as terminal, and the 
transitional courses intended for boys or girls of the same age and 
previous education who are likely to continue their whole-time 
education beyond the age at which the terminal courses end, we first 
note that, while terminal courses are more practical, concrete, wide 
and comprehensive, transitional courses are more abstract, deep and 
coherent. That education suffers when the difference between terminal 
and transitional courses is overlooked, is shewn by the findings of 
Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee, who report that the modern sides 
of higher secondary schools f commonly suffer in comparison with 
the classical sides, because the latter provide definitely transitional 
courses, while the former provide courses that aim at being terminal 

* Other illustrations have been given above on pp. 353, 354. 
j- See below, Chapter 24, § 4, especially p. 443. 



III. 21. 8 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 359 

as well as transitional. The teaching of classics, say the Committee, 
looks forward to Oxford ' Greats ' or to the Cambridge Classical Tripos, 
while 'the modern side teachers, on the other hand, have to deal 
not only with the future candidate for a university honours degree... 
but with a large number of boys who will pass directly into the ranks 
of commerce or industry.' The result is that, while the classical 
sides have the coherence that belongs to transitional courses, 'the 
modern sides suffer... from diversity of effort and indefiniteness of 
aim.'* In another place the same Committee remark that the 
(advanced secondary f) course which they sketch for boys who are 
about to enter university courses in engineering, may want some 
modification I to transform it into the (senior technical §) course that 
will best suit boys who are leaving school at about eighteen to go into 
works without intending to proceed later on to a university. 

The comparative width, or comprehensiveness, of terminal courses, 
as compared with transitional, is illustrated by the subjects studied 
in modern secondary schools that expect to lose most of their pupils 
at sixteen years of age. Thus the principal assistant secretary of the 
Secondary Branch of the Board of Education said, in evidence to the 
Board's Consultative Committee, that 

The curriculum of the [secondary] schools was [in 191 1] much fuller 
than it had been. In many schools more subjects had been added, and in 
many, even where certain subjects were not new, they had assumed a much 
more important position in the curriculum.... In 1902 it was chiefly in 
connexion with the instruction in natural science that attention was being 
drawn to the necessity of making education much more practical. But 
now [in 191 1] the same principles were being devised in regard to other 
subjects, for example practical mathematics, the teaching of geography 
and the introduction of domestic subjects ||. 

So the tendency of these modern secondary schools is to substitute 
for courses in which the study of a group of subjects is abstract in 
character, other courses in which there is less of abstract study, and 
the aim of which is to produce width rather than singleness of interest : 
the newer courses are rather multi-focal, while the older courses 
tend to be unifocal. Or, in the language we have just been using, 
these secondary schools appear to be tending to replace tran- 
sitional by terminal courses. In a later chapter we shall commend 
the substitution of terminal for transitional courses in ordinary 

* Loc. cit. p. 12. t See below. Chapter 23, § 3. 

X Loc. cit. p. 48. § See below, Chapter 23, § 8. 

II Report on the Consultative Committee on Examinations in Secondary Schools, 
191 1, pp. 429, 430. (Evidence of the Hon. W. N. Bruce.) 



36o A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 8 

secondary schools* for boys and girls who intend to leave school on 
reaching the age of sixteen. But there is a danger that the changes 
described in Mr Bruce's evidence, while they tend in this direction, 
will not result in satisfactory terminal courses, unless indeed regard 
be had to the need for connecting every subject studied with the 
pupil's interest in some group of occupations, one or other of which 
he expects soon to enter f. 

To the preceding discussion of the features that distinguish 
terminal from transitional courses we have now to add that part-time 
education should, in general, partake rather of the nature of terminal 
than of transitional whole-time courses; and whole-time education, 
as compared with part-time, should be more transitional than 
terminal. In other words, part-time education should be chiefly 
concerned with the widening of an existing interest : it should make 
for comprehensiveness. Largely by means of descriptive lectures, it 
should add to the more concentrated and more abstract study of 
whole-time school or college, and to the experiences of daily work, 
a multitude of new facts that give meaning to the abstract study as 
well as to the routine practice. It should make for continuity, both 
in series with preceding whole-time education, and in parallel with 
concurrent practical training in works or offices. It should add a 
fringe of culture to the single wide interest whose development, begun 
at school, is being continued at work. So part-time classes, in which 
whole-time education is continued and made to overlap and fit on 
to the practical training that every employer should give to his 
younger employees, is an essential part of a perfect system of 
education. Its most important function is, we repeat, to preserve 
continuity in the development of the educand's single wide interest, 
as he passes from whole-time school or college to whole-time employ- 
ment in the service of the community. The need for such a system of 
part-time education will not have disappeared, even when the last 
two or three years of everybody's whole-time education has the 
specific aim of preparing him for the occupation that comes next. 
Moreover, part-time education is necessary at whatever age the 
transition from whole-time education to employment takes place. 
There is need for the post-graduate evening classes, in which the 
young university-trained engineer — now engaged in manufacturing, 
say, Diesel engines or rotary converters — extends and brings up to 
date his knowledge of these special departments of mechanical or 

* See below, Chapter 24, § 4. • 

t Cf. p. 353 above. 



III. 21. 8 APPLICATIONS OF PRINCIPLES 361 

electrical engineering, as well as for the part-time secondary education 
of boys and girls who enter employment direct from elementary 
schools at the age of fourteen. 

We have observed* parenthetically that g is in general more 
likely to be increased by the abstract studies that characterise 
transitional courses than by the more concrete, comprehensive, and 
descriptive matter that characterises terminal courses. We repeat 
this observation here because of its great pedagogic importance. We 
have seen f how large is the part played by the Will in the voluntary 
development of personal neurographies, so as to make them correspond 
as closely as possible with the endarchy of science. If, therefore, we 
have been right in saying that a man's Will, or power to concentrate 
attention, or^, is increased by practice J, it follows that the effort to 
make one's neurography correspond with the endarchy of science, 
and especially with the more central essences in that region of the 
endarchy of science with which the individual's occupation is likely 
to make him most concerned §, will make for the increase of his g. 
And this effort is typical of the abstract studies with which transitional 
courses are principally concerned. This conclusion may also be reached 
by observing that concentration of attention can best be practised 
upon a number of closely associated thought-activities — a coherent 
interest — because, unless the thought-activity before consciousness 
at any moment calls up many others from which the Will can select 
that which is next to receive attention, this faculty cannot be 
practised; and, without practice, power to concentrate attention 
cannot be developed. 

§ 9. Handwork. 

The last application of the principles discussed in Book II that 
we have here to note is concerned with the effect of connecting bodily 
movements with thought-activities. We have already, in Book II, 
considered the widening and deepening of interests that handwork 
may produce ||. We have noted also that handwork may be employed 
for the creation of an interest-system, to which neurograms corre- 
sponding to other school activities may be attached, and be thereby 
deepened and increased in value Tf. We have here only to emphasise 
a remark already** made, that children whose ^ is small can be stimu- 

* See above, pp. 341 (especially the footnote ft) and 353. 
t See Chapter 14, § 7. | See above, pp. 137, 138. 

§ See above, pp. 266, 267. || See above, pp. 59, 60, 277. 

^ See above, p. 278. ** See above, p. 278. 



362 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 21. 9 

lated to make an effort of Will in manual training classes, when they 
will make no such effort to master more abstract studies. In fact, 
handwork of the right kind increases g because, in many cases, it 
cannot be done at all without some concentration of attention*; so 
that subnormal children may secure through handwork an increase 
of g which could not be effected by more abstract studies f. 

The Report of the Consultative Committee of the Board of 
Education on Practical Work in Secondary Schools, which supports 
the preceding! conclusions concerning the importance of handwork 
in the education of subnormal children, produces no evidence that 
handwork — except perhaps such practical work as is included in the 
general description, 'laboratory work' — should form part of the 
regular curriculum provided in secondary schools § for pupils who are 
over the age of fourteen. We have indeed remarked already || upon 
the danger of injury to able children through overmuch compulsory 
practical work in school. We conclude that while woodwork, and in 
favourable cases metalwork also, should form part of the optional 
studies, handwork of this kind should not be included in the com- 
pulsory curriculum of secondary schools attended by pupils over the 
age of fourteen. 

* Cf. above, p. 278. This statement is confirmed by the Consultative Committee 
of the Board of Education in their Report on Practical Work in Secondary Schools : 
'Handwork... gives the opportunity for each individual pupil to deal with and 
conquer an outside force or forces over which he can only gain the mastery by the 
deliberate effort to gain mastery over himself. The definitely active attitude which 
he must take up if he is to do the work at all has been found in practice to react 
favourably on all sides of his work [by increasing his g]. Work of this kind has 
to be done by the pupil himself; it forces him to observe and to think — ' (Loc. 
cit. p. 7.) 

f Cf. the Report of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education 
quoted in the previous footnote: 'The experience of our witnesses... shows that 
Handwork develops a side of him [the backward child] that would not be 
developed by other methods.' [Loc. cit. p. 9.) 

J See the last two footnotes. 

§ And therefore for children who are not subnormal. 

II On pp. 279, 280 above. 



CHAPTER 22 
A FLOW-DIAGRAM OF EDUCATION 

§ I. Introduction, 

In the preceding chapter we have considered the appHcations of some 
of the principles enunciated in Book II. In the present and succeeding 
chapters our endeavour will be to take these applications of general 
principles and to apply them to the problem of education in England* : 
namely, the problem of adapting the present English provision of 
education so that it shall realise the aim of education indicated by 
our enquiry in Book II. It will be remembered that this aim will 
only be realised when every member of the community develops that 
particular kind of single wide interest, and that degree of general 
ability, 'skill in thinking,' or ' g,' which his particular service to the 
community most needs for its efficiency f, and which will enable him 
to realise his best self in that service. While the central purposes of 
all English citizens are, as we said, to have the same most central 
essences, and so to be in harmony with one another (and, as far as 
possible in harmony with the central purposes of men and women 
throughout the world), the intermediate zone of each individual's 
neurography — his scientific endarchy that corresponds to his organised 
thought — is to vary according to the particular activities by which 
he serves his fellows. As the labour of ministering to the spiritual 
and material needs of a community is divided amongst its several 
members, different types of service being assigned to each, different 
types of single wide interest must be developed, the differences being 
especially marked in those intermediate zones of which we have just 
spoken. While, therefore, the education of every citizen is alike con- 
cerned with giving him a central purpose in life, kindling in him what 
Mr Wells calls 'the undying fire,' inspiring him with the spirit of the 
Lord J, and while this supreme function of everybody's education can 
only be fulfilled if the teachers share that central purpose § and are 
inspired by that same spirit, the business of forming aright the various 
types of single wide interest, and of developing the various degrees of 

* See above, p. 319. f See above, pp. 311 and 316. 

X For, as St Paul said, ' Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Uberty ' 
(2 Corinthians iii. 17): cf. above, p. 300. § See above, pp. 270, 346. 



364 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 22. l 

general ability required by different citizens according to their 
different types of service, cannot be accomplished without organisa- 
tion of different types of education in the various schools and colleges 
of this (or any other) country. If, therefore, we are concerned in this 
chapter and the next with the differences between the various types 
of education required by members of the different classes described 
in Chapter 20*, and with the differences between the several types 
of education required by the same individual at different stages, it 
must not be supposed that we are for a moment forgetting that all 
education has alike to aim at the creation of harmonious central 
purposes in all men, and at the relation of all the thought and feeling 
of every individual person so as to form in him a single wide interest 
dominated by his central purpose. 

For the present then, we are concerned with different types of 
education. Sixteen different types are represented in the diagram f 
facing p. 319. This number might be increased indefinitely as the 
organisation of a national or world-wide system of education becomes 
more and more perfect ; but this number at least should be recognised 
in England within the next decade. 

The differences that here concern us between various types of 
education are differences of the kind that distinguish transitional 
from terminal courses |. They are differences between alternative 
modes of presenting the same subject, rather than between different 
subjects similarly presented. From our present standpoint, a descrip- 
tive account in English of a Greek play belongs to much the same 
type of education as a descriptive account of an industrial process; 
an evening spent in solving, or trying to solve, mathematical problems 
belongs to much the same type of education as an evening spent 
in composing Latin prose; or, again, discussions between graduate 
students engaged on similar researches belong to the same type of 
education, whether those similar researches are in natural science or 
history or philology. We have already § referred to the different 
types of education to which the study of the Pythagorean theorem 
may belong, according as it is approached deductively, as would 
normally be the case in a junior secondary || course, or inductively, as 
might well happen in a senior elementary || course; and, just as the 

* See above, p. 326. | See footnote { on p. 457 below. 

J See above, Chapter 21, § 8. § See footnote J on p. 344 above. 

II A further account of these types of junior secondary and senior elementary 
courses follows below in Chapter 23, §§ 3 and 12 respectively. Junior secondary 
education is represented by the upper half of the second (reading from the left) 
two-year column of the diagram facing p. 319; and senior elementary education 
is represented in the bottom half of the same column. 



III. 22. 1 A FLOW-DIAGRAM OF EDUCATION 365 

same subject may be presented in different ways to different students 
of the same age, so also it ought, in general, to be differently presented 
to the same students at different ages*. 

The diagram to which reference has just been made and which 
we shall employ in the next chapter to illustrate the inter-relation- 
ships of the several types of education that will concern us, will laterf 
be used to shew the inter-relations of different types of schools and 
colleges J; and, still later§, the same diagram will be employed to 
illustrate a system of scholarships, together with maintenance allow- 
ances, that would bring every kind of education within the reach of all 
British subjects of sufficient educational promise wherever they may 
happen to live and however little they, or their parents, may be able 
to pay. It will, however, be convenient to explain the diagram once 
for all, rather than piecemeal as we have to put it to its several uses. 
In the course of our description of the diagram, we shall have to refer 
to the several types of education described in Chapter 23 and to the 
several types of school or college described in Chapter 24. 

§ 2. The Province as a Unit. 

The diagram is described as representing a 'national' system of 
education designed with a view to English needs and possibilities. 
Apart from these special needs and possibilities, there is nothing 
about the diagram that renders it more applicable to a national, than 
to a world-wide, or merely a provincial, system of education; and, 
indeed, within England itself the needs and possibilities vary so 
greatly between, say, Lancashire on the one hand, and Wessex or East 
Anglia on the other, that somewhat different diagrams, corresponding 
to somewhat different educational systems, might well be drawn for 
different English provinces. On this understanding, we shall use the 
diagram before us to represent, either a system of education for all 
England, or, alternatively, a system for one of the ten or twelve 

* Cf. Mr James Strachan: 'Just as there were certain assumptions it was 
natural for Euclid to make, and these are more numerous and less explicit than 
those made by the modern philosophic mathematicians, so there are assumptions 
which it is natural for the school boy or girl to accept, and these are still more 
numerous and still less explicit than those made by Euclid. They form the natural 
basis of geometry for the young.' (Article on Mathematics in The New Teaching, 
p. 206.) 

f See below. Chapter 24. 

X For the future we shall print the several types of school and college — but 
not 'school,' or 'college,' or 'university' alone — with capital initial letters, in 
order to distinguish them from the several types of education with which we 
also have to do. 

§ See below, Chapter 25. 

G. E. 24 



366 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 22. 2 

educational provinces into which England may one day* be divided. 
But the diagram will not serve to represent a system of education 
that can be maintained or administered by an authority concerned 
with less than one of the provinces of which we have just spoken; for 
the diagram cannot be used to represent less than one complete 
educational unit, although it may be used to represent any number of 
such units. In the latter case, the units are not to be supposed to be 
entirely self-contained. For example, the pupils from the Higher 
Secondary Schools f of one province should be free to enter the 
university or universities of another province. The position we are 
here concerned with establishing is that an authority, if responsible 
for Elementary Schools alone, may fail to secure continuity, or adequate 
means for transferring pupils, from elementary to secondary education ; 
or again, an authority that is concerned with secondary education 
but within whose area no university is situated, may altogether neglect 
to provide advanced secondary education that prepares for under- 
graduate courses ; or, if it does provide advanced secondary education 
of a sort, it may ignore the need for making the advanced secondary 
courses of study continuous with the undergraduate courses to which 
they should lead; and, in any case, it may fail, as some local authorities 
to-day do fail J, either to contribute anything whatever to the funds 
of the local university, or to make any scholarship or maintenance 
grant to a qualified boy or girl (from its own district) who, without 
such aid, is prevented from entering the university through lack of 
means. So, then, the diagram cannot be employed to represent a 
system of education in any area less than that of a province which 
includes one or more universities as part of its educational system §. 
The diagram is a 'flow-diagram,' the flow being from left to right 
as age increases. The flow upwards and downwards is allowed for, 
since any region of the diagram that has the same colour and is 
enclosed by the same black lines, is designed to represent a pool, in 
which all the streams, coming in along the left-hand boundaries, are 
intimately mixed before the outflow takes place uniformly over the 
right-hand boundaries. Thus, for example, a pupil, entering a junior 

* And the sooner the better for the reasons given here and on pp. 450, 451, 
and in Chapter 25, § 2 below. There are several other purposes of local govern- 
ment, notably housing, for which sub-division of the country into provinces 
is hardly less urgent than it is for education. Cf. an unsigned article on 'The 
Machinery of Government' in Nature for 3rd April, 1919. 

f See below, Chapter 24, § 4 and footnote % on p. 365. 

% See below. Appendix H, pp. 502 et seq. 

§ This suggests that the English educational provinces might be constituted 
on the lines roughly indicated in Appendix E, on p. 497 below. 



III. 22. 2 A FLOW-DIAGRAM OF EDUCATION 367 

secondary course in an ordinary Secondary School at about the age 
of twelve, is shewn in the diagram as having the same chance of 
being transferred, two years later, to an intermediate secondary course 
in a Higher Secondary School, whether, before the age of twelve, he 
attended a Public Elementary School on the one hand or a Secondary 
School on the other. 

Where the proposed system of education, whether of the whole 
nation or of the inhabitants of a particular province, should make 
different provision for boys and girls respectively, the diagram repre- 
sents the system proposed for boys and young men rather than that 
proposed for girls and young women. Note will be taken as we proceed 
of some of these differences*. Here it is sufficient to observe that the 
differences will, in general, be more marked in the more advanced 
work represented on the right-hand side of the diagram. 

The diagram relates only to the education of normal and super- 
normal people : it does not shew the special provision that is required 
for seriously defective children f . 

§ 3. The Horizontal Scale. 
The figures along the top and bottom of the diagram represent 
years of age. But — although there are hard and fast vertical lines J 
in the diagram, as for example that which separates the ordinary 
Elementary School from the Part-time Secondary School at the age 
of fourteen — it is not to be supposed that each child, who is attending 
an ordinary Elementary School on his fourteenth birthday, will sever 
his connexion with the school precisely fourteen years from the 
moment of his birth. According to § 9 (i) of the Education Act of 
1918, obligation to attend whole-time day school no longer ceases at 
a stated age, but at some convenient season, such as the next end of 
term following upon the fourteenth birthday. Thus the exact age of 

* For an example, see below, p. 386 footnote f- 

f Mr Cyril Burt, reporting as psychologist to the London County Council, 
states that 'A child who is retarded by more than three- tenths of his age is 
regarded as quahfied for a special school.' Thus, for example, children who, at 
the age of ten, are doing the work that most children would be doing at the age 
of seven or earlier, and again children who, at the age of fifteen, are doing the 
work that the most normal children would be doing at the age of ten and a 
half or earlier, should not be admitted to that part of the system of education 
which is represented in the diagram, but should have provision made for them in 
special schools and classes for mentally defective children. 

The proportion of the population thus excluded from the diagram on account 
of mental deficiency is probably rather less than 1-5 per cent. Mr Burt estimates 
that, according to the scale just quoted, 6,504 out of 454,297 London children 
between the ages of eight and thirteen are deficient. (See Fig. 7, between pp. 42, 43 
of the Report on The Distribution and Relations of Educational Abilities quoted 
above.) % Or, more precisely, 'ordinates.' 

24 — 2 



368 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 22. 3 

transfer of different children from one kind of school to another will 
be different. But the statistician may represent these different ages 
by a curve of frequency distribution*, the highest point of which 
corresponds to the age at which most children experience the transfer 
in question. Professor Pearson calls that point the mode of the 
frequency distribution. It is therefore the age of the 'modal' boy 
that is represented by the figures along the top and bottom of the 
diagram f. It is, however, to be noted that the beginning of the 
diagram at the age of ten does not indicate any transition from one 
type of education to another, or from one type of school to another, 
at that age: it is only because we shall be most concerned with 
education that follows the age of ten that we have not extended the 
diagram to the left to represent the education which the modal child 
should receive before that age. 

§ 4. The Vertical Scale. 

The vertical scale of the diagram is marked along its left-hand 
margin, where the figures represent percentages of normal and super- 
normal boys and young men J. The intercept made on the vertical 

* If, for example, ydx measures the number of boys who are transferred from 
Elementary Schools between the ages of x and x + dx, and if x and y be measured 
in directions that are at right angles to one another, then ydx is the area of a 
column bounded by the x axis at the bottom, by the frequency distribution curve 
at the top, and by the ordinates x and x + dx respectively on the two sides : so 
that, when dx is very small, the tops of these columns for different values of x — 
or the locus of the column tops — is the curve of frequency distribution. Then the 
highest point of this curve, where y is at its maximal value, is called the mode 
of the frequency distribution. The value of x that corresponds to this value of 
y, marks the age at which most children experience the transfer in question. 

f Thus, for example, according to the diagram, the mode of the frequency 
distribution for boys transferred from Elementary to Secondary Schools occurs 
at the age of twelve. We may call this the modal age of transfer between these 
two types of schools. In the same way the other sharp vertical lines in the diagram 
correspond to the ages at which ' modal ' children and young people would, according 
to the system of education which the diagram represents, pass from one type of 
education to another. In particular, the advanced part-time courses provided by 
Senior Technical Schools or Polytechnics do not cease at the age of twenty-one 
for everybody; some students may not, indeed, complete these courses until 
they are more than sixty years of age. What the diagram represents is that 
more young men complete advanced part-time courses at the age of twenty-one 
than at any other age. In fact, according to the system of education represented 
in the diagram, it is not only university part-time classes, to which the diagram 
sets no upper limit of age, but also all the miscellaneous part-time classes, provided 
by Senior Technical Schools or Polytechnics, that will continue to be attended 
by a diminishing proportion of the population up to, and beyond, middle life. 

I As we said above, the same figures will very nearly represent the corre- 
sponding proportions for girls as for boys, so far as the left-hand side of the diagram 
is concerned; but, to the right of the diagram, the figures for young men become 
increasingly different from the figures for young women. (Cf. footnote f on p. 386 
below.) 



III. 22. 4 A FLOW-DIAGRAM OF EDUCATION 369 

line, or ordinate, by the coloured area which corresponds to a type of 
education, or by the black-bounded area which corresponds to a type 
of school, is proportional to the number of (male) pupils of the corre- 
sponding age who should be receiving the type of education, or attend- 
ing the type of school, in question. For example, the intercepts made 
by the coloured areas upon the ordinate that corresponds to the age of 
fifteen years, divide that ordinate from the top to the bottom of the 
diagram in the following proportions: 14, 36, 5 and 45 per cent. 
These figures shew that, under the system of education represented 
in the diagram, of normal and supernormal boys completing their 
fifteenth year, 14 per cent, would be receiving intermediate secondary, 
36 per cent, senior secondary, 5 per cent, senior elementary, and 
45 per cent, junior part-time education. The intercepts made upon 
the same ordinate by the black-bounded areas, that correspond to 
types of schools, divide that ordinate in the following proportions: 
6, 29, 15, 5 and 45 per cent. As before, these figures shew that under 
the scheme of education represented in the diagram, of normal and 
supernormal boys of fifteen years of age, 6 per cent, would be attending 
a Higher Secondary School, 29 per cent, an ordinary or Lower 
Secondary School, 15 per cent, a Junior Technical School, 5 per cent. 
a Central Elementary School, and 45 per cent, a Part-time Secondary 
School (or Part-time Continuation School, as some prefer to call it) . 

Moreover, the vertical scale indicates the proportion of the whole 
number of boys who, on attaining a given 'age of transfer,' should 
pass from one type of education, or from one type of school, to another. 
For example, at the age of twelve, 15 per cent, of the children are 
shewn as passing from Elementary Schools to ordinary or Lower 
Secondary Schools, 15 per cent.* to Junior Technical Schools, and 
10 per cent.f to Central Elementary Schools. Again, 3 per cent, of 

* These figures accord with those recommended to the Manchester Local 
Education Authority in a recent (December, 1918) report on 'Manchester's 
Education Problem' by Mr Spurley Hey, the Director of Education. It is to be 
hoped (see below, p. 415) that within ten years Manchester will have given effect 
to this proposal, so that, as represented in the diagram, ten years hence, 50 per cent, 
of the population will be receiving whole-time secondary education up to or 
beyond the age of sixteen. It is true that Mr Hey recommends that the transfer 
of the 15 per cent, of children from Elementary to Junior Technical Schools 
should take place at a later age than that of the 15 per cent, from Elementary 
to ordinary Secondary Schools, while our diagram represents the transfer from 
Elementary to Junior Technical Schools as taking place at the same age as the 
principal transfer from Elementary to Secondary Schools. We are here in accord- 
ance with a resolution adopted by the Association of Technical Institutions at its 
annual meeting in London early in the year 1918. 

■f- This figure might be considerably increased up to an upper limit of 50 per 
cent. But see below, p. 423 and the footnote on p. 452. 



370 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 22. 4 

the boys attaining the age of fourteen are shewn as transferring at 
that age from ordinary or Lower Secondary Schools to Higher 
Secondary Schools, there to receive intermediate secondary education ; 
at the same age 8 per cent, enter intermediate secondary courses in 
the ordinary or Lower Secondary Schools; 2i per cent, enter senior 
secondary courses in the same schools; and all the 15 per cent, of the 
boys who are in Junior Technical Schools pass, at the same age, from 
junior secondary on to senior secondary courses. These figures will 
probably suffice to shew how the vertical scale in the diagram is to 
be interpreted. 

It is to be noted that the units in terms of which the vertical scale 
of the diagram is measured are percentages, and not absolute numbers 
of boys whose age is given. It was therefore unnecessary to make 
the top and the bottom lines of the diagram converge to allow for 
the fact that, owing to the normal operation of the death-rate, there 
would be fewer boys of seventeen than of fifteen in the area — whether 
a province or the whole country — whose system of education is 
represented by the diagram. 

We have already * pointed out that the diagram is concerned with 
university education as well as with other types, so that it cannot 
represent the education of a district or province that is inhabited by 
much less than two million people; for the provision of separate 
university institutions for smaller groups of population would be 
prohibitively expensive. Let us then suppose, for the moment, 
that the diagram relates to the education of boys and young men in 
a province inhabited by five million people. We thus fix the scale of 
the diagram, and so become able to read off the number of boys or 
young men who should be attending any particular type of school or 
college, or receiving any particular type of education. The number of 
boys or young men who are in any one year of school or college age 
is about I per cent, of the population; so that 100,000 boys or young 
men would be represented by any two-year column in the diagram; 
and I per cent, of a complete two-year column, a unit area equal to 

1 [ . will stand for 1,000 boys or young men attending 

the type of school or receiving the type of education represented by 
the portion of the diagram in which that unit area is situated. Thus, 
in a population of five million people, there should, according to the 
diagram, be 6,000 boys (4,000 receiving advanced secondary and 
2,000 senior technical education) attending the Higher Secondary 
Schools of the province in the two years between sixteen and eighteen 

* On p. 366 above. 



III. 22. 4 A FLOW-DIAGRAM OF EDUCATION 371 

years of age; or 6,000 men undergraduates attending its university 
(whole-time) for three years from eighteen. 

It will be asked why the diagram has been drawn to shew these 
particular numbers, instead of numbers that are either more or less 
than these. On the right-hand side of the diagram, the scale is mainly 
determined by the need and demand for university education. 
According to the figures published by the British Science Guild, the 
number of whole-time students in English universities was, just 
before the war, 5 per 10,000 of the population. The corresponding 
figure for Scotland was 17 per 10,000; and, for America, 10 per 10,000, 
or, including all four-year colleges, 20 per 10,000. The corresponding 
figure for Germany was 14 per 10,000. Since positions of authority 
and responsibility tend more and more to be occupied by university 
graduates, it is of special importance to a nation that its university 
education should be adequate in quantity as well as in quality. Now 
that the supply of university education in England is far less than 
the demand — a demand not merely from young men whose university 
education has been deferred by the war but, if we may judge from 
the experience of a single University College*, from boys approaching 
the university directly from Secondary Schools — it is reasonable to 
propose that the supply of university education in this country ten 
years hence should be at least equal (quantitatively, in proportion to 
the population) to that which, twenty years earlier, was already avail- 
able in the greater part of the English-speaking world. The accom- 
panying diagram therefore represents university undergraduates as 
constituting 18 per 10,000 of the population of England ten years 
hence, assuming that half as many women as men will then be entering 
English universities f. 

The scale on the right-hand side of the diagram having thus been 
determined, the scale in the middle and left of the diagram was fixed 

* Applications from school boys and on behalf of school boys for admission to 
the College of Technology, Manchester, at the beginning of the following academic 
year (October, 1919) were two and a half times as numerous during one month 
(May-June) of the preceding spring as they had been in the corresponding period 
of the year before the war. 

t According to the diagram, 4 per cent, of the male population enters the 
university, and spends there an average of three years; so that, as 50,000 men 
(or I per cent, of the population of 5,000,000) attain university age in any one 
year, there will every year be 2,000 freshmen undergraduates entering the university 
of a province of this size. If, as in the diagram, the undergraduate courses extend 
over three years, there will therefore be 6,000 men undergraduates. And, if about 
half as many women as men should receive a university education, and if the 
average university course lasts for three years, 9,000 students, or 18 per 10,000 of 
the population will be attending a university at any one time. Then 3 per cent, 
of the whole population will at some time or other enter a university. 



372 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION in.22.4 

from the fact that at least one local education authority * is considering 
practical proposals for retaining half the population f in whole-time 
attendance at school until the age of sixteen. This is the proportion 
shewn in the diagram, which also shews the existing proportion of 
the population in attendance at Pubhc Elementary Schools below the 
age of ten. 

§ 5. Types of Education. 

Colouring is used in the diagram to represent types of education, 
unshaded colours representing whole-time education, and shaded 
(singly hatched) colours representing part-time education that is 
received, either in the day or in the evening, by people whose ordinary 
employment occupies the greater part of their time. 

The doubly hatched region on the right of the diagram represents 
those later years of active service to the community, when attendance 
at organised courses of study bearing directly upon one's trade or 
profession may have ceased, but when private reading, and tutorial 
classes % under the auspices of the Workers' Educational Association, 
or other university part-time classes §, may help those who have 
passed the ordinary educational age to modernise their ideas and to 
enlarge their outlook. Classes A, B, C and D in this doubly hatched 
region represent the different types of service described in Chapter 20 1|. 
The breaks in the lines separating these classes mark the fact that 
transition from one class to another is by no means wholly determined 
by school or college education ! 

It will be observed that the central singly shaded area, that 
represents part-time education in the diagram, forms a kind of bridge 
between whole-time education to the left, and whole-time employ- 
ment to the right. We have already^ pointed out that part-time 
education is no less necessary at the top than at the bottom of such 
a system of education as the diagram is designed to represent ; but, 

* See above, footnote * on p. 369. 

t I.e. half the whole number of boys and girls who live to be sixteen years of 
age. 

{ If the diagram extended further to the right, patches of the light blue singly 
hatched colour, which represents university part-time studies, would appear in 
each portion of the doubly hatched region. But the modal age at which the 
attendance of men, whose formal education has been discontinued at an early 
age, enter classes conducted under the joint auspices of universities and the 
Workers' Educational Association is very little less than thirty, and therefore 
beyond the age range of the diagram. 

§ E.g. such as are provided by the People's High Schools in Denmark: see 
a paper by J. S. Thornton that forms Chapter xvii of Sir M. E. Sadler's Continua- 
tion Schools in England and Elsewhere. 

II See above, p. 326. Concerning the relative sizes of these classes, see below, 
p. 415, especially footnote ||. T[ See above, p. 360. 



III. 22. 5 A FLOW-DIAGRAM OF EDUCATION 373 

of course, part-time education will begin and end at different ages for 
different types of students. 

As a rule the lighter colours at the top of the diagram represent 
transitional types of education, while the darker tints below them 
represent terminal types. We have already* noted some of the 
leading characteristics that should distinguish transitional from 
terminal types of education. In particular we have observed that 
transitional should, in general, be more abstract and more coherent 
than terminal types of education. For example, in the diagram junior 
secondary education is more abstract and coherent than senior 
elementary; intermediate secondary than senior secondary; advanced 
secondary than senior technical; and intermediate part-time than 
senior part-time education. Moreover, as their names imply, the more 
abstract and coherent transitional courses (marked by the lighter 
colours) prepare for more concrete and comprehensive terminal 
studies (marked by darker colours) that are to follow in the final j 
and more specific stage of whole-time or part-time education. 

§ 6. Types of School. 
Lettering represents type of school, college, or other educational 
institution. Indicating types of school by lettering and types of 
education by colouring, the diagram is able to shew that one type of 
school may provide courses of study of more than one type; and also 
that one type of course of study may be pursued in more than one 
type of school. Thus, junior secondary education between twelve and 
fourteen may be obtained in a Preparatory School, in a Higher 
Secondary School, in a Lower Secondary School, or in a Junior 
Technical School. On the other hand, between fourteen and sixteen, 
a Lower Secondary School may provide intermediate secondary 
education and senior secondary education; while, between sixteen 
and eighteen, a Higher Secondary School may provide advanced 
secondary education and senior technical | education; and, also 
between sixteen and eighteen, a Senior Technical School § may 

* See above, pp. 358 et seq. f But see footnote J on p. 372. 

X Senior technical courses include two-year whole-time courses in industrial, 
commercial, domestic, or any other vocational subjects (including art and 
music), for young people whose education has reached the standard of the school 
certificate examination, and who do not intend to proceed to a university. Senior 
secondary and senior technical courses do not mean narrow vocational courses, 
but a general education which has a centre of interest in some group of occupations 
into one of which the pupil is expected to enter. (See below Chapter 23, especially 
§ 8 and § lo.) 

§ Senior Technical Schools here include schools of art, commerce, or domestic 
subjects, and other similar post-secondary non-university schools. 



374 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 22. 6 

provide (whole-time) senior technical courses and intermediate part- 
time courses. 

We may anticipate a later chapter* by noting here — what is too 
often overlooked — that a school or college may, and ought to, 
exercise upon its pupils or students an educational influence that is 
no less strong and no less characteristic than that of any particular 
curriculum. The school or college influence of which we are here 
speaking is one of the kind which Oxford and Cambridge associate 
with residence and tutorial superintendence : it belongs, not so much 
to the lecture room or laboratory, as to the students' societies, the 
playing fields, the summer camp, and the services in chapel or hall. 

§ 7. Scholarships and Maintenance Allowances. 

Arrow-heads represent scholarships, together with such mainte- 
nance allowances as are required to secure that every kind of education 
is brought within the reach of all inhabitants of the area — whether 
province or country — whose educational system is represented in the 
diagram. The question of scholarships will be further considered below 
in Chapter 25. It is sufficient to observe now that these scholarships, 
with whatever maintenance allowances are necessary in each case, 
are to be equally available for all persons wherever they may happen 
to live in the area to which the diagram relates — say, England — and 
however little they may be able to contribute towards the cost of 
their own education f. 

The main flow of selected scholars is marked by double-headed 
arrows. The single-headed arrows indicate the flow that results from 
a supplementary selection of a few exceptional persons who, for one 
reason or another, have missed being chosen when the main selection 
took place. Thus the double-headed arrows indicate a constant supply 
of systematically selected persons — and the single-headed arrows a 
few exceptional persons — leaving the school which corresponds to the 

* Chapter 24 below. 

t It will be noted in Chapter 25 that the cost to this country of a national 
system of scholarships and maintenance allowances based upon this principle, and 
sufficient to enable the numbers of boys and young men over fourteen years of 
age shewn in the diagram, however impecunious their families, to attend the 
various types of school and college represented in the diagram, would be well 
within the bounds of financial possibility. Even if maintenance allowances for 
boys who need them had to be 15s. per head per week between fourteen and 
sixteen, 305. per head per week between sixteen and eighteen, and £^ per head 
per week between eighteen and twenty-one, the whole cost of scholarships and 
maintenance allowances would probably be less than the expenditure out of public 
funds on elementary education before the war; and less than one-sixteenth of the 
nation's annual drink bill. See Appendix G below, especially p. 501. 



III. 22. 7 A FLOW-DIAGRAM OF EDUCATION 375 

area in which the arrow-head Hes, and proceeding, in so far as may be 
necessary at the pubUc expense, to the institution towards which 
the arrow-head points. A single arrow-head enclosed within a ring 
indicates a supplementary scholarship, with maintenance allowance 
where necessary, enabUng the exceptional person who receives it to 
pass on to a higher institution of unspecified type*. 

* The single arrow-heads enclosed in rings are employed in cases where it was 
not possible, except by giving long shafts to the arrows — as, for example, where 
a few exceptional persons, passing from advanced part-time courses in a Senior 
Technical School to whole-time undergraduate courses in a University, are 
indicated by the single-headed arrow with the- wavy shaft at the twenty years 
ordinate — and so impairing the legibility of the diagram, to shew whither a 
supplementary scholarship would enable a pupil to transfer. Thus, the ringed 
arrow-head on the fourteen years ordinate represents supplementary scholarships 
that enable a few exceptional Elementary School children of the age of fourteen 
to transfer to ordinary Secondary Schools or to Junior Technical Schools. 



CHAPTER 23 

TYPES OF EDUCATION 

We have now to employ our diagram * to illustrate the various types 
of education required by members of the different classes described 
in Chapter 20 f. It will be convenient to consider first the several 
types of education which successively make up the normal education 
of members of Class A, and then to describe the types of education 
that normally prepare for Class B, Class C, and Class D, in that order. 
We shall thus describe some characteristic features of each of the 
sixteen types of education represented in the diagram. Finally, we 
shall indicate how some of these types of education, and especially 
those provided by part-time courses, may be employed in an order 
different from the normal so as to afford alternative educational paths, 
differing from the normal avenues of approach, to the several classes 
of occupation. 

§ I. Nursery Education. 

The beginnings of formal education — that part of the whole 
educational process in which, as we said J, human educators intervene 
— take place in the nursery or, at least, at home. Education in the 
nursery, the nursery school, and the infant school, need make but 
little progress with the building up of the single wide interest, or 
with the increasing of 'g' by practice in concentrating attention : aims 
with which the types of education that belong to later adolescence 
are so much concerned. Rather is it the function of the earliest 
education to increase the unorganised fringe that is relatively so large 
in the neurography of infancy and early childhood §; to form the 
central nucleus of the future single wide interest by familiarising the 
child with the idea of God as the source of all good gifts, and the 
beneficent central power of the universe; and to connect this central 
nucleus directly to as many as possible of the elements in the un- 
organised fringe of the childish neurography, and especially to those 
concerned with right conduct. 

* Facing p. 319 above. f See above, p. 326. 

X See above, Book I, Chapter 2, p. 12. 

§ Cf. William James' observation, already quoted, that 'Childhood has few 
organised interests.' (Loc. cit. Vol. i, p. 417.) 



III. 23. 1 TYPES OF EDUCATION 377 

The growth of the unorganised fringe, that corresponds to manifold 
and disconnected experiences, is to be fostered and guided in two (by 
no means mutually exclusive) ways. The first may be called aural or 
visual instruction, and consists of making the child acquainted with 
some new thing : a new colour, for example, or a new story, or a new 
country. The second may be called practical instruction, and consists 
in giving the child the use of some material object (such as a boat, or a 
pony, or a dog, or, in general, a toy) with which he may become familiar 
by handling it and by other bodily movements. Such practical 
instruction enables the child to learn for himself to behave intelligently, 
and ultimately automatically, in the presence of objects with which 
accident or aural or visual instruction has first made him acquainted. 

But it is not long before abstraction and analysis* have to intro- 
duce the beginnings of thought-organisation into the education of even 
very young children ; for this process is involved in naming particular 
objects, selected parts of the whole field of consciousness. In fact, 
learning to talk and to count is the beginning of organising thought 
and of forming that intermediate zone — the scientific endarchy sur- 
rounding the central purpose-system — with which subsequent types 
of education, and especially the transitional types that belong to later 
adolescence, have so much to do. 

§ 2. Elementary and Preparatory Education. 

We pass from the education of very little children to the types of 
education — preparatory and elementary — which, with the ' modal' f 
child, should end at about the age of twelve. The last two years of 
education of these two types are represented in the first two-year 
column of our chart. 

In this stage of education, that finishes at the age of twelve |, the 
beginnings of thought-organisation, or abstraction in the direction of 
forming a single wide interest, should receive more attention than in 
the earlier stage, but not nearly so much as in the following stages. 
For elementary and preparatory education should still be largely 
concerned with increasing the unorganised fringe of the neurography, 
and with connecting the elements of the fringe directly to the central 
nucleus of the future single wide interest-system ; so that, in our view, 

* See above, pp. 198, 199. f See above, p. 368. 

X Throughout the present chapter we shall, in the interests of brevity, use 
this or an equivalent phrase to express the fact that the mode of the frequency 
distribution of ages, at which the type of education in question should be completed, 
occurs at the age (of twelve, or at whatever age may be) mentioned in the text. 
In other words, when we say that a type of education is to begin or end at n years 
of age, we mean that the modal boy or young man is to begin or end the type of 
education in question on attaining n years of age. (See above, p. 368.) 



378 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 2 

religion should not merely enter preparatory and elementary education 
as one of many equal subjects, but it should enter into every lesson 
on the time-table : it is not merely religious instruction but religious 
education — education inspired by the Spirit of the Lord, education 
centred in spiritual things — that is wanted*. For the rest, instruc- 
tion, pure and simple — aural, visual and manual f instruction — 
continues to play an important part at the stage to which elemen- 
tary and preparatory education belong. The information acquired 
at this stage through ears and eyes, as well as the results of the 
practical instruction, are, in the main, 'knife and fork studies J.' 

It may be convenient briefly to indicate how the headings under 
which we considered the concern of nursery education with widening 
the unorganised fringe of neurography, and with introducing the first 
beginnings of organisation, apply to some of the subjects commonly 
studied in the course of elementary and preparatory education. These 
groups, which are by no means mutually exclusive, were : 

(a) instruction, aural or visual, concerned with forming the 
first elements of a child's neurograms for new facts — or, in short, 
acquainting him with new facts — that would not ordinarily come 
within his infantile experience so as to attract his attention, but 
which he will nevertheless need to know before he is much older; 

(b) manual or other practical instruction, concerned with widen- 
ing and extending neurograms so as to include elements (probably 
belonging to the Rolandic cortex) whose connexion with one's neuro- 
gram of an object enables one to act intelligently in the presence 
of that object; and 

(c) comparatively abstract studies, among the first of which 
are learning to talk and learning to count, concerned with the 
beginnings of abstraction and thought-organisation. 

In the elementary or preparatory stage of education, history, 
geography, and nature study will, in the main, belong to group (a). 
For history, as studied by children, consists of stories that acquaint 
the children with the basic facts of sociology. It is studied because 

* See above, pp. 296 and 347. 

■f We use this word here instead of the word ' practical ' because the practical 
instruction defined above, although it is concerned with all voluntary movements 
and could therefore best be described by the impossible word 'skeletal,' has after 
all most to do with the hands. 

+ Cf. Professor Adams' Evolution of Educational Theory, p. 16. These 'knife 
and fork studies' — the phrase is Lord Avebury's — are a necessary preliminary 
to the later stages of education. For example, unless a child can read simple 
words in his own language, his further education is hampered, even if reading 
could be a wholly unnecessary accomplishment in his particular walk in life. 



III. 23. 2 TYPES OF EDUCATION 379 

of the high place which the central essences of sociology occupy in 
the endarchy of science as completed by the Christian hypothesis. 
But the information conveyed by the stories, which are all that a 
child learns of history, does not form part of his single wide interest 
until, later on, the central essences of sociology are abstracted. To 
become acquainted with the stories and never, not even at political 
meetings in later life, to study the principles, will not contribute to a 
single wide interest. In fact, history at this stage is not concerned 
with thought-organisation, but with instruction about apparently 
disconnected facts. Geography, too, at this stage is only concerned 
with basic facts, whether of sociology or of natural science. Later on, 
one's interest in one's British citizenship suffers unless it includes 
some knowledge of the geography of the British commonwealth, and 
one's interest in one's world citizenship suffers if one is ignorant of 
world geography; and, in either case, the motive to achieve a com- 
mon purpose suffers too. But the connexions which weld together the 
miscellaneous facts that form one's childish knowledge of geography, 
so as to include it in its proper place in one's single wide interest, 
hardly begin to be established until childhood is at an end. Nature 
study, again, is, at this stage, concerned with basic facts. As with 
history or geography, its study does not contribute to the single wide 
interest unless and until it is continued and integrated by the ab- 
straction of central essences. 

Reading, writing, the study of a foreign language, and handicraft, 
will, at this stage of education, mainly belong to group (b), although, 
as we said, overlapping between different groups is bound to occur. 
Reading, pure and simple — reading about familiar subjects with the 
aim, not of acquiring new information, but of becoming familiar 
with the written symbols for facts with which the reader is already 
acquainted — we have to include in group (b) because reading of this 
kind aims at widening the reader's neurograms for facts already 
known to him, by extending those neurograms to include elements 
that correspond to the visible written symbols for the facts in question, 
as well as elements whose activity accompanies the oral expression 
of those symbols. In the same way, writing, pure and simple — writing 
words which one has already learnt to read, and with some meaning 
of which one is already acquainted — belongs to group {b) ; for such 
writing involves manual and other bodily movements, and thus adds 
to existing neurograms the elements whose activity accompanies the 
movements in question. At the elementary and preparatory stage of 
education, the study of various foreign languages also belongs to 



38o A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 2 

group (b), for it consists mainly in learning more names for familiar 
facts. Moreover, a foreign language studied at any later stage of 
education, even in a university by students whose only object is to 
understand the expression in the foreign language of thoughts which 
they would understand if expressed in their own language, or else 
to express in the foreign language thoughts which they are already 
able to express in their own, would also belong to group (b)*. It 
should be added that this kind of study of a foreign language ought 
to form part of the education of childhood, rather than of adolescence 
or maturity. In the words of Sir Stanley Leathes : ' If a parent wants 
his boy to learn French and German, he had better see that he learns 
them before he is ten; if possible, before he is eight.' f Handicraft, 
again, evidently belongs chiefly to group {b) . For many pupils, however, 
and especially for those who become craftsmen, handicraft will later 
on form a central interest, closely connected with their supreme 
purpose, and forming the link between that purpose and most of 
their other school studies. Moreover, as Rousseau pointed out J, 
school handicraft may extend the interests of pupils who will not 
become craftsmen, so as to make those interests overlap the interests 
which their fellow citizens take in their own craftsmanship. 

Of the studies that commonly form part of elementary education, 
mathematics alone — arithmetic, some geometry, and perhaps the 
elements of algebra — belongs mainly to group (c). The same is prob- 
ably true of preparatory education also, although it has been the 
usual practice of Preparatory and other Secondary Schools to lay 
more stress than is commonly laid in Elementary Schools on the 
aspect of education that we have connected with group (c). But the 
difference between preparatory and elementary education, as hitherto 
provided in this country, is more a matter of practice in the power 
of concentrating attention, and so of increasing §-, than of neurography 
or subject matter. It is in private study, and especially in homework 
exercises upon such subjects as Latin and Euclid, that the Preparatory 

* As in the case of every other subject mentioned in this and the preceding 
paragraph, it is not the subject, but the subject as studied during elementary or 
preparatory education, that belongs, in the main, to the particular group to which 
it has been assigned in the text. For example, at a more advanced stage a foreign 
language may be studied in connexion with sociology, attention being given to 
the Sittlichkeit of the foreign people; or from the point of view of philology. It 
may, however, be remarked that, where the study of a foreign language is not 
to be carried to an advanced stage, the sociological [Sittlichkeit) interest of the 
study can generally be better served by the study of the history and institutions 
of the foreign people, and of translations of their literature, than by studying only 
the elements of their language : cf . p. 354 above. 

f Loc. cit. p. 95. X See above, p. 279, 



III. 23. 2 TYPES OF EDUCATION 381 

School boy has better opportunities than the boy from the Elementary 
School* to practise concentrating attention and so to develop f 'g-' 
And indeed subjects of this kind have probably been selected for the 
curricula of Preparatory Schools, or at least for the curricula of the 
Higher Secondary Schools to which Preparatory Schools are intended 
to lead, for the sake of the high degree of concentration of attention 
required for studying them as they usually are studied on the classical 
sides of English 'public schools,' rather than for the sake of making 
the pupil acquainted with their particular subject matter. At all 
events, the thirteen Oxford Preparatory School boys, whom Mr Burt 
examined, possessed on the average a considerably higher degree of 'g ' 
than was possessed by the thirty Elementary School boys whom he 
examined at the same time. As has already! been said, Mr Burt 
attributed the superior general ability of the Preparatory School boys 
to the fact that they 'were in nearly every case sons of men of 
eminence in the intellectual world, that is to say of Fellows of the 
Royal Society, university professors, college tutors, and bishops,' 
while 'the boys of the elementary school were of the lower middle 
class, sons of local tradesmen.' But, for the reasons already stated, 
we incline to attribute the superior general ability of the Preparatory 
School boys, partly at least, to the fact that their education was far 
moTe likely to increase 'g,' than were the more comprehensive, but less 
concentrated, studies of the Elementary School. 

The differences we have observed to exist between elementary 
and preparatory education, as hitherto provided in England, may, to 
some extent, be justified by the fact that, hitherto, children who have 
attended private Preparatory Schools or Secondary Schools before 
the age of twelve have generally had a much longer school life still 
before them than children who have attended Public Elementary 
Schools up to at least the age of twelve. For the fact that an Elementary 
School child in his twelfth year was, as a rule, approaching the end 
of his whole-time education, was a sufficient reason for his education 
being more terminal in character than that of the Secondary School 
boy of the same age. But when the duration of a child's whole-time 
education depends only, or chiefly, upon his own personal qualities — 
and especially upon his general ability and ambition or aim — the 
justification for this particular difference between elementary and 

* In many if not most parts of England — in striking contrast with Scottish 
practice — Elementary School children are not even allowed to take books home, 
on the ground that the school-books belong to the local education authority and 
not to the children ! 

t See above, pp. 137, 138. % See above, p. 136. 

G. E. 25 



382 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION IH. 23. 2 

preparatory education will have disappeared. Indeed, had our 
diagram been designed to represent education in England fifty instead 
of ten years hence, the first two-year column of the diagram might 
well have been printed in the same colour from top to bottom. 
But it is too much to hope that, within the next ten years, such differ- 
ences as remain between elementary and preparatory education will 
wholly depend upon the qualities of the children receiving education 
of these respective types. In particular, it is too much to hope that, 
within ten years, the language spoken by children attending Elemen- 
tary Schools on the one hand, and Preparatory Schools or ordinary 
Secondary Schools on the other, will have become indistinguishable; 
and, until this language difficulty has been overcome, it will be very 
hard to remove those other differences between preparatory and 
elementary education that do not depend upon the intellectual 
qualities of the children. This and other differences that we have still 
to note as existing between elementary and preparatory education, 
resemble the differences that distinguish terminal from transitional 
courses at a later stage. 

Thus elementary education has been more concerned than pre- 
paratory education with widening the child's interest by acquainting 
him with new facts: in short, by the studies that mainly belong to 
our group (a). The reason is doubtless to be found in the different 
nurture that has hitherto marked children following preparatory and 
elementary courses respectively; for the children in Preparatory and 
other Secondary Schools have, for the most part, developed wider 
interests than are possessed by the average Elementary School child 
of the same age, because of their less restricted home surroundings, 
and especially because of their better educated parents. Then again. 
Elementary Schools have, as a rule, given more attention than 
Preparatory Schools to handicraft and other practical instruction. 
It has been assumed that children attending Preparatory Schools and 
other Secondary Schools would be able to obtain at home, and 
especially in the holidays, that practical experience of constructive 
work in wood, metal, or other material*, which the child receiving 
elementary education could only receive at school. On the other hand, 
preparatory courses have tended to include a larger proportion of 
abstract study, work that is not closely connected with the practical 
experiences of home or school life. Latin and Greek, for example, are 

* For example, concrete. The pleasure which some children derive from 
making, or helping to make, concrete structures is described by M. E. Francis in 
The Things of a Child; and by Professor E. B. Poulton, F.R.S., in his life of his 
son Ronald Poulton. 



III. 23. 2 TYPES OF EDUCATION 383 

often taught to children under twelve in Preparatory Schools because 
these are instrumental subjects — 'knife and fork studies' — that 
prepare for junior secondary education of a particular kind that is 
offered by Higher Secondary Schools. But, as we said, the chief 
difference between preparatory and elementary education in England 
to-day consists in the greater importance attached by the former to 
increasing general ability, or 'g,' by hard study of whatever subject. 

§ 3. Secondary Education : Junior, Intermediate, and Advanced. 

According to the plan laid down at the beginning of this chapter*, 
we have next to consider the further education of the future member 
of Class A who is following the normal avenue of approach to his 
profession. From the age of twelve to the age of eighteen he will 
receive secondary education, of which we may recognise three succes- 
sive types, junior, intermediate, and advanced, each occupying two 
years. All of these belong to the transitional category described in 
an earlier chapter f, for the aim of each of them is to prepare for 
higher whole-time education that is to follow. To the terminal type, 
on the other hand, belong senior secondary education which, as we 
shall see J, will form the greater part of the provision of the ordinary 
or Lower Secondary School, as well as of the Junior Technical School, 
for pupils between fourteen and sixteen years of age; and the senior 
technical courses which Higher Secondary Schools may provide for 
the last two years of the school life of those young people who are 
not going on to the universities, are also of the terminal type. 

If the future member of Class A, with whose secondary education 
we are now concerned, has attended an Elementary School nearly up 
to the age of twelve, he should, for reasons which we shall further 
consider in the next two chapters, receive no more than his junior 
secondary education in an ordinary or Lower Secondary School. That 
is to say, he should enter his Higher Secondary School by the age of 
fourteen and there receive the intermediate and advanced secondary 
education that will occupy the remaining years of his school life until, 
at or soon after the age of eighteen, he enters a university to read 
for an honours degree. 

It is during the period of junior secondary education that, as we 
have seen§, a central purpose in life may begin to become dominant 
in the growing wide interest. From that time onwards, the chief 
concern of transitional secondary education — including junior, inter- 

* See above, p. 376. f See above, Chapter 21, § 8. 

X See below, Chapter 23, § 10. § On pp. 340, 341 (Chapter 21, § 6). 

25—2 



384 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 3 

mediate, and advanced secondary courses — is with the structure* of 
a pupil's single wide interest as a whole. Of transitional secondary 
education it is far more true than of elementary or preparatory courses 
which precede it, or of terminal courses which follow it, that the 
curriculum is an organic whole, rather than an assemblage of standard- 
ised parts. It resembles a living organism or a work of art, rather 
than a Ford motor car or a standard shipf . It does not consist of the 
independent study of many branches of knowledge; and its effective- 
ness is not to be tested merely by an external examination of pro- 
ficiency in separate subjects | regarded as isolated units. Rather, as 
we said§, is its first concern to form and, by means of strong emotional 
associations, to deepen the pupil's central purpose. The chief function 
of secondary education, and especially of transitional secondary 
education, is, in fact, to foster the growth of true religion — 'not 
theology nor yet ethics, but personal and experimental,' || 

Around this centre it has also to build up, out of the miscellaneous 
information obtained in childhood^ and its own coherent curriculum, 
some of the most valuable and important parts, particularly in the in- 
termediate zone**, of that single wide interest which should continue 
to grow throughout maturity. This intermediate zone has to corre- 
spond as closely as possible with some region of the endarchy of 
science that shall extend to the limits of the discovered portion of 
the endarchy. Thus will the intermediate zone of the pupil's growing 
single wide interest include elements that correspond to some of the 
most valuable of the discovered essences of the endarchy of science. We 
are thus applying our general principle f f by starting from practical, 
concrete experiences, and from them building up a single wide interest 
by abstraction so as to reach as near the centre of the discovered 
portion of the endarchy of science as the available time and the 
ability of the student permit; or, in other words, so as to reach the 
highest principles, laws, and generalisations which subsequent 
terminal (whole-time and part-time) courses will afterwards apply to 
the field of experience where the student's walk in life will, for the 
most part, probably lie. 

Another reason why transitional secondary education, especially 
in later adolescence, should include and, subject always to the most 
central purpose, be centred in the highest, and, as they often are, the 

* See above, pp. 334 to 336. f See above, p. 337. 

X See above. Chapter 21, § 5. § See above, pp. 334 to 336. 

II Cf. G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, Vol. 11, p. 326 (quoted above on p. 297). 
1} See above, p. 340. ** See above, Chapter 21, § 4. 

■ft See above, Chapter 21, §6, p. 342. 



III. 23. 3 TYPES OF EDUCATION 385 

most recent, generalisations of organised thought*, is that these 
generahsations appeal to the emotions j of later adolescence and 
awaken the enthusiasm of young people who are on the threshold of 
manhood or womanhood. The result is that the student's neurograms 
for such generalisations acquire the depth and permanence that fit 
them for the central position they should occupy in the growing single 
wide interest-system. 

Still another reason why the secondary education of future members 
of Class A, who, as we saw|, require a specially high degree of '^' or 
'skill in thinking,' should thus concern itself with abstractions, is that 
progress in such abstract studies demands concentrated attention and 
so, as we have already pointed out§, is peculiarly well fitted for in- 
creasing '^'||. 

We have seen^ that the greater the general abihty, or '^,' possessed 
by a pupil, the longer in general should his whole-time education 
extend. The longer also will it be before the education, which he 
receives in common with other boys of like abihty who will ultimately 
engage in different forms of Class A service to the community, should 
cease, not merely to be of the same type as that of the other boys, 
but actually to include the same subjects studied in the same way. 
But when the age for discontinuing whole-time education is imminent, 
terminal courses will provide different education for boys of like 
ability who are to find employment in different groups of occupations. 
While, at their commencement, terminal courses must aU be continuous 
with the transitional courses that precede them, they will, towards 
their close, involve the study of different subjects, or at least a different 
study of the same subjects. So there will have to be many varieties 
of terminal courses. Moreover, the transitional courses that prepare 
for, and are continuous with, terminal courses that are different, not 
merely at the end but also at the outset, must themselves differ (not 
in type but) in subject matter**. And, in general, the normal f f educa- 
tional paths that lead to different fields of service should fork with 
increasing frequency as the end of whole- time education approaches J J . 
It follows that the different types of education which a world-wide, 

* I.e. the incomplete endarchy of science: see above, footnote § on p. igg. 

f Cf. p. 345 above. 

% On p. 327 above. 

§ On p. 361 above. 

II See above, p. 333 and footnote -ft o^^ P- 34i- 

if See above, p. 325. 
** See above, p. 356, where emphasis is laid on the right kind of abstract study. 
tf See above, p. 376. 
%% Cf. p. 325 above. 



386 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 3 

national or provincial system provides for future members of Class A, 
should offer a progressively increasing variety of subject matter*. 

Remembering what has already been said of the supreme import- 
ance of making the central spiritual purpose central in secondary 
education, and distinguishing the different varieties of junior, inter- 
mediate, and advanced secondary education, not by any difference in 
emphasis on the central purpose, but by the region of organised 
thought which they respectively make next most central, we may 
therefore suggest that a complete system of education should offer — 
together with ample opportunities for physical exercise, handicraft, 
drawing, and (for girls) domestic subjects — the following varieties of 
junior, intermediate, and advanced secondary courses to every boy 
or girl I who is selected to receive education of those types I : 

Junior Secondary Courses, that form a single wide interest 
having : 

I. Classics nearest the central purpose, but also including 
English, mathematics, natural science, history, geography, and such 
other languages as will be studied at least up to the standard marked 
by the School Certificate examination §. 

* Thus university graduates, who are being trained in methods of research 
during. the two or three years that follow their first graduation, may each be 
following a different course of study adapted to his individual needs. Of under- 
graduate honours courses preparing for graduate study and research the variety, 
while still large, will be less than that of graduate studies. The advanced secondary 
courses that prepare for undergraduate studies must again be of several different 
kinds, but the variety need not be so great as of university 'honours schools' or 
'triposes.' The variety of intermediate secondary courses may be smaller still, 
while of junior secondary courses one or two kinds will probably suffice. 

■f Since girls in their early twenties are far more mature than boys of the 
same age, girls may be said to have more growing-up to do in their teens. Their 
school routine should therefore allow them more leisure for their own thoughts, 
especially between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. It is accordingly suggested 
that girls should take three years over the intermediate secondary studies that 
boys will usually complete in two years; and that therefore the usual age at which 
girls enter universities should be at least one year in advance of the age at which 
boys come up to universities direct from school. 

X Later in the day on which the outlines of these ten courses were dictated, 
there came into the writer's hands a note by the headmaster of Sherborne School 
entitled Subjects of Study in a Public School. In this pamphlet Dr Nowell Smith 
provides one (junior secondaiy) course in the Lower School; three (intermediate 
secondary) courses in the Upper School; and /owy (advanced secondary) courses 
in the Sixth Form. He thus makes the number of sides of the school (or, as we 
say, varieties of courses) increase as the work becomes more advanced. 

§ The examination for the School Certificate — the School Certificate examina- 
tion, as it is called in the text and in the regulations of the Joint Matriculation 
Board for the Universities of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birming- 
ham; or the First School Examination as it is described in official literature — is 
an examination conducted by a university examining body for pupils who are 
completing their intermediate secondary education. 



III. 23. 3 TYPES OF EDUCATION 387 

II. Natural science nearest the central purpose, but also in- 
cluding English, mathematics, history, geography, and such other 
languages as will be studied at least up to the standard marked by 
the School Certificate examination. 

Intermediate Secondary Courses, that form a single wide 
interest having : 

I. Classics and ancient history nearest the central purpose, but 
also including mathematics, natural science, and such other foreign 
languages as will be studied at least up to the standard marked by 
the School Certificate examination. 

II. Modern studies (English and foreign languages, literature, 
and history) nearest the central purpose, but also including Latin, 
natural science, and mathematics; and possibly — if it can be studied 
up to the School Certificate standard — Greek, among subsidiary 
subjects. 

III. Natural science and mathematics nearest the central 
purpose, but also including a modern foreign language, and — if they 
can be studied up to the School Certificate standard — Latin and 
Greek as subsidiary subjects. 

Advanced Secondary Courses*, that form a single wide interest 
having : 

I. Classics and ancient history nearest the central purpose, but 
also including English and other subsidiary subjects. 

II. Modern humanities, principally languages, nearest the central 
purpose, but including modern history, and also including English and 
other subsidiary subjects. 

III. Modern humanities, principally modern history, nearest the 
central purpose, but also including languages and economics, as well 
as English and other subsidiary subjects. 

IV. Natural science nearest the central purpose, but also in- 
cluding mathematics and English and other subsidiary subjects. 

* The following five varieties of advanced secondary courses correspond 
approximately with the three divisions into which the Higher School Certificate 
examination — or Second School Examination — is generally divided, our second 
and third varieties being generally included in the second group of Higher School 
Certificate subjects, and our fourth and fifth being included in the third group. 
But the Joint Matriculation Board of the Northern Universities divide their 
second group approximately as we have divided it. See Appendix F for particulars 
of this examination as conducted by the Joint Matriculation Board in 1919. 



388 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 3 

V. Mathematics nearest the central purpose, but also including 
natural science (astronomy, mechanics, physics, and chemistry), and 
English and other subsidiary subjects. 

In accordance with what has already* been said about the 
importance of giving form-masters a dominant place in secondary 
education, especially in its earlier years, it is desirable that at least 
half the teaching week should be given by every boy, at any rate 
during the junior and intermediate courses, to work under one form- 
master. It is the form-master whose principal concern it will be to 
relate the pupil's growing single wide interest to a central Christian 
purpose f. Throughout junior and intermediate secondary education, 
it is also the form-master who should teach Enghsh;]:. During junior 
secondary education, the form-master should teach history and 
geography, and, on the classical side, undertake part, at least, of the 
teaching of natural science. During intermediate secondary education, 
the classical or modern side form-master should still take part in the 
teaching of natural science to the boys in his form. At the same stage, 
the form-master on the science side should teach his boys, not only 
all their English as we have already said, but, if possible, all their 
mathematics § as well. 

During advanced secondary education, it is still desirable that the 
pupils should give more than half the week to those subjects on which 
their coherent curriculum is focussed, but it is no longer as important 
as in the earlier || stages of secondary education, that these focal 
subjects should be taught by one form-master. Indeed, as we said^, 
an increasing degree of interchangeability between university lecture- 
ships and sixth-form masterships in Higher Secondary Schools is much 
to be desired. To this end, sixth-form masters might well be encouraged 
to engage in researches under the general direction of a neighbouring 
university. In so far as geographical considerations permit, these 
investigations should involve work in the university laboratories, 
library, or elsewhere within the precincts of the university; but, even 
when the distance between the School and the university is too great 
for such an arrangement to be practicable, the possibility of a school- 
master engaging in research, and of his research keeping him in touch 
with university life and thought, is by no means wholly precluded. 

In case it be again objected that, when form-masters teach 
subjects other than those in which they have specialised, their 

* See above, pp. 270, 346 et seq. f See above, p. 347. 

X See above, pp. 347, 348. § See above, p. 348. 

11 See above, p. 346. ^ See above, p. 349. 



III. 23. 3 TYPES OF EDUCATION 389 

teaching will necessarily suffer in comparison with that of experts, 
we remind ourselves once more* that the same subject should be 
studied in different ways by boys on different sides of their school ; or, 
in other words, by boys who are following different varieties of the 
junior, intermediate, and advanced secondary courses outlined above : 
in short, by boys who are looking forward to walks in life that are 
very different although they may all belong to Class A. 

We have retained classics as the focal subject of one of the alterna- 
tive secondary courses at each of our three stages, junior, intermediate, 
and advanced; and for two principal reasons. The first is that the 
university study of classics will always be necessary for the purpose 
of keeping the thought of our time in touch with the best of 
the thought of ancient Greece and Rome ; while the study of classics 
at this stage will be sure to suffer if it has not been approached by 
strenuous classical study in Secondary Schools. For some time to 
come, however, the proportion of boys whose interest will be centred 
in classics throughout their secondary education will probably exceed 
the proportion of adults whom the community will need as classical 
scholars. This leads us to our second reason for demanding the reten- 
tion of classical sides in Higher Secondary Schools : namely, that the 
teaching of classics for many generations has resulted in a comparative 
perfection of method that enables form-masters to secure far more 
concentrated attention from their classical forms than the various 
specialist masters, who are responsible for modern studies, can generally 
obtain from their pupils j. Moreover, the classical studies are by 
tradition more closely welded together, and are thus more effective 
in developing a single wide interest, than is the case with the work 
done on the modern and science sides of most Secondary Schools J . 
There does not, however, appear to be any inherent reason why 
modern humanities or natural science or mathematics should not be 
so taught, by suitably trained form-masters, as focal subjects, and so 
related to a central purpose and to subsidiary subjects of a coherent 

* See above, Chapter 21, §8, especially pp. 355 and 357. 

I Cf. Mr Robinson's justification of classical studies, quoted above on p. 333. 
See also the quotation, on the same page, from Mr Fairgrieve. 

J See above, pp. 338 and 359. To the passages quoted on these pages from 
Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee's Report, we may here add the following sen- 
tences: ' It cannot however be said that up to the present there has been either in 
the schools or in the universities any clear conception of modern studies which 
might give these sides a meaning and an aim. The teaching of Classics has behind 
it a longer tradition and is on the whole better understood, with the result that 
teachers are on surer ground. It looks forward to an end which is clearly marked 
by the Oxford School of Literae Humaniores or the Cambridge Classical Tripos.' 
(Report, loc. cit. p. 12.) 



390 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION IH. 23. 3 

curriculum, as to make them no less effective than the traditional 
discipline of classical sides in practising concentration of attention 
and in developing single wide interests. This reform of junior and 
intermediate secondary education on modern and science sides — in 
our plan the mathematical side does not begin before the sixth form, 
or, as we have called it, the period of advanced secondary education — 
is indeed urgently needed. Until it has been effected, many able boys, 
whose future walk in life could better be approached by transitional 
secondary courses focussed in modern humanities or natural science, 
will rightly continue to spend much of their school time on classics, 
with the result that, for the sake of the advantages in developing ' g' 
and in forming a single wide interest that are not obtainable in the 
lower forms of modern and science sides, many of the ablest boys will 
still be compelled to cumber their minds with what Professor Whitehead 
calls a 'horrible burden of inert ideas.' * 

It remains to add that the subsidiary subjects, which should be 
included in the coherent curriculum of any of the tenf kinds of 
secondary education that we have outlined, need by no means be 
confined to those that we have named. In particular, organised games 
and social activities of various kinds, to some of which we shall have 
occasion to refer in the next chapter, have their places in all secondary 
education. 

§ 4. University Entrance. 

The future member of Class A should, as a rule, remain at his 
Higher Secondary School until he has spent two years (receiving 
advanced secondary education) in the sixth form, and has reached 
the standard of the Higher School Certificate in the branch of knowledge 
which he wishes further to pursue as an undergraduate in a university 
'honours school.' He should, as indicated in our diagram, enter the 
university at or soon after the age of eighteen. It is true that the 
future engineer often spends some time in an engineering works be- 
tween school and college, but there is a growing consensus of opinion 
that this period should not be too long % \ perhaps from Christmas until 

* See above, p. 357. 

t Five advanced, three intermediate, and two junior. 

% ' Something may be said for the view that the time spent in works between 
school and college is of great use in bringing the student into contact with things 
about which he will study at college, in broadening his outlook upon the world, 
and in subjecting him to works discipline. As, however, he has not yet learnt 
[from advanced secondary studies] the principles involved in the machinery and 
processes displayed in the factory, he cannot hope to acquire knowledge at as 
great a rate as during the two years' apprenticeship following his college course. 



III. 23. 4 TYPES OF EDUCATION 391 

the following October* would be ideal if both school-leaving and 
university-entrance scholarships could be awarded, as those of some 
Oxford and Cambridge colleges already are, just before Christmas f. 
In fact, as Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee point out, ' It is desirable 
on educational and other grounds that boys who intend to pass on 
to a university should as a rule remain at the secondary school up 
to the age of eighteen, provided that the school is so organised as to 
furnish satisfactory [advanced secondary] J courses in the various 
groups of subjects appropriate for them.' § The Committee accordingly 
recommend that 'Eighteen should be the normal age of entry from 
secondary schools to the universities.' || It is, however, stiU the 
practice of most English universities to make sixteen the minimum 
age for entry. So long as this minimum is only intended to mark the 

For this reason, the time spent in works between school and college should not 
extend over too great a period, and this period should not reduce the essential 
training in works after the college course has been completed. The abler the 
student, the less necessary in general is the short works course between school 
and college. Perhaps an ideal arrangement would be for a boy to win his university 
scholarship in December, leave school at Christmas, spend nine months in the 
works, and enter upon his college course in the following October.' (Report on 
Engineering Education and Research approved by the Council for Organising 
British Engineering Industry, since combined with the British Engineers' Associa- 
tion, in 1916; p. 10.) 

* The interval that, in some cases, may be spent in works between school and 
college is marked by the thick black line at the top of the eighteen-years ordinate 
in the diagram. The width of the black line is less than proportional to the Christmas 
to October period suggested in the text, for it is only a comparatively small 
number of boys who should interrupt their academic training by spending nine 
months or a year in works, or in otherwise obtaining practical experience, between 
school and college. 

t This suggestion is at variance with a finding of Sir Joseph Thomson's Com- 
mittee, namely that : ' The interval between the date of the [university entrance] 
scholarship examination and the time of coming up into residence is too long, 
and we recommend that the examinations should be held not earlier than ist 
March.' (Report, loc. cit. p. 61.) If this recommendation of Sir Joseph Thomson's 
Committee were adopted, the difficulty alluded to in the text might still be met — 
but not, it is submitted, so satisfactorily — by adopting a suggestion made by the 
Consultative Committee of the Board of Education in their 'Interim Report on 
Scholarships for Higher Education' [Cd. 8291]: namely, by allowing a scholar to 
postpone taking up his scholarship. They write: 'Our conclusion is that if a 
Scholar desired to defer his entry to the University for the purpose of acquiring 
experience in works, permission should not be refused on proof that some suitable 
establishment was willing to take him and give him an adequate chance of 
acquiring the appropriate experience.' (Report, loc. cit. p. 40.) 

% See above, pp. 383 and 387. 

§ Loc. cit. p. 27. 

II Loc. cit. p. 27. The Report adds: 'In making this recommendation we are 
supported by all the witnesses who have given evidence to us on the subject.' 

Compare the findings of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education 
in their ' Interim Report on Scholarships for Higher Education ' : ' For those who 
are to go to the Universities the normal age for completion of Secondary Education 
should be not less than seventeen; eighteen or even nineteen is better.' [Cd. 8291, 
P- 15] 



392 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 4 

practical limit of an age-of -entry frequency distribution whose mode * 
is at eighteen, this lower limit need not be altered ; but that eighteen, 
rather than seventeen or less, should be the modal age of entry to 
a university from the normal avenue of approach to it, needs to be 
more generally recognised. The fact that, of the very small number of 
men who still enter universities under seventeen years of age, an 
unduly large proportion fails to make good, is not sufficiently widely 
appreciated. 

For reasons that we are about to consider f, the courses of study 
followed by most undergraduates in English universities should 
resemble the work of ' honours schools ' rather than that now required 
for pass degrees in these universities. In general, therefore, under- 
graduate courses should not be expected to introduce the student for 
the first time to work below the standard marked by the Higher 
School Certificate I, although they may well include the revision of 
such work under the direction of university teachers who are able to 
place famihar fundamental matter in a new perspective; and indeed 
this business of placing familiar matter in a new perspective should 
be undertaken at the earliest possible moment after the undergraduate 
has entered his university. In his first year, and even in his first term, 
he should become acquainted with university teaching at its best§. 
But, since some years must elapse before the present provision of 
advanced secondary education in England is increased sufficiently to 
enable every boy, who is approaching the university by the normal 
path, to have spent two years in the sixth form of a Higher Secondary 
School before beginning his undergraduate studies, it will, for the 
present, be necessary for universities to provide preliminary one-year 
courses preparatory to the three years undergraduate course in an 
honours school ||. To these preliminary courses will be admitted boys 
who have completed their intermediate secondary education in a 
Lower Secondary School (together with a few exceptional boys from 
other institutions whose work does not reach the Higher School 

* See above, p. 368. f See below, § 5 of this chapter on pp. 397 et seq. 

X Only so can the universities ' be freed from most of the elementary teaching 
that has up to now tended to distract their attention from their proper province.' 
(Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee's Report, p. 58.) 

§ ' The student, on coming to the University, should come under the influence 
of the great teachers of the subject (instead of being placed, as is sometimes the 
case, in the hand of junior lecturers or demonstrators), and should be inspired 
with the views and the spirit of those teachers.' (Education, Secondary and 
University, A Report on Conferences between the Council for Humanistic Studies 
and the Conjoint Board of Scientific Societies, p. 33, by Sir Frederic G. Kenyon, 
President of the British Academy, 1919.) See also below, p. 400. 

II This principle has been accepted by Manchester University for the Faculty of 
Technology. 



III. 23. 4 TYPES OF EDUCATION 393 

Certificate standard) and who have satisfied such other conditions* 
as may be imposed by the university concerned. It will then be the 
object of each preliminary course to enable these boys, after one year's 
work, to enter undergraduate (honours) courses as well prepared as 
boys who have satisfactorily completed advanced secondary courses 
up to the standard marked by the Higher School Certificate examina- 
tion. 

At the present time it is usual for English universities to require 
candidates for admission to degree courses to have reached a certain 
standard of proficiency in five or six separate subjects. Very recently 
this uniform requirement has been modified in two ways. First, less 
specialised knowledge of some subjects has been allowed to be com- 
pensated for by more expert knowledge of other subjects |, a change 
that renders it possible for secondary education to aim at developing 
a single wide interest in the manner that we have described, without 
imperilling the pupil's chance of passing a university entrance test 
that requires him to have speciahsed in six separate subjects. No 
narrowing of secondary education is likely to result from this change ; 
for, as we have seen, the more a student, young or old, cares for and 
believes in his own focal subject, the more he will desire to make the 
whole world tributary to it. Or, as Professor Campagnac has put it, 
'The more ardent his specialism, the more catholic will be his tastes.' 
The second alternative was first devised by London University for 
the purpose of testing candidates who had not passed through English 
secondary schools. In a modified form this second alternative has 
recently been adopted by the Northern Universities J for the purpose 

* It is now usual for English universities, other than Oxford and Cambridge, 
to require candidates for admission to degree courses either to have passed a 
special 'matriculation examination,' or to have passed the School Certificate 
examination 'with credit' in certain separate subjects; or, in other words, to 
have reached a higher standard than is necessary for passing the School Certificate 
examination in those subjects. For example, the Universities of Manchester, 
Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham admit to their degree courses 
candidates who have passed the School Certificate examination with credit in 
English, Mathematics, History, and three other approved subjects, of which one 
must be a language. See also the next footnote. 

f Thus the Joint Matriculation Board of the Universities of Manchester, 
Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham will accept, as equivalent to a pass 
in the six-subject Matriculation examination, a pass in the School Certificate 
examination (requiring a less expert knowledge of five subjects) together with a 
pass in the Higher School Certificate examination. Moreover, a sufficiently satis- 
factory performance in the Higher School Certificate examination, although it 
may not secure the certificate, will, if supplemented by a pass 'with credit' in 
four subjects of the School Certificate examination, be accepted under certain 
conditions as equivalent to a pass with credit in the six subjects of the Matricula- 
tion examination. 

I Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, and Birmingham. 



394 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 4 

of testing the qualifications of ex-service men who wish to enter upon 
degree courses. 

These changes are, as we said, beginning to reduce the demand 
for the six-fold specialisation that, until recently, was a necessary 
condition of admission to degree courses in the newer universities of 
this country. But the entrance conditions of English universities 
need to be further modified in the same direction. Indeed, entrance 
tests for undergraduate courses need to be distinguished from tests 
of the efficiency of Secondary School teaching. The object of the former 
is to prevent the damage to the university and to the individual 
student that would result if he were admitted to an undergraduate 
course without either a sufficiently wide knowledge to enable him to 
take his part in the educative influence which undergraduates should 
exercise upon one another, or a sufficient special knowledge of the 
subject, or group of subjects, the further study of which he wishes to 
pursue in the university. A university entrance test should therefore 
consist of two principal parts, namely a test of general education* 
and a test of special knowledge. 

While it must remain open to every university, and even to every 
Faculty or honours school, to decide what degree of special knowledge 
is required before students can be regarded as qualified to profit by 
the undergraduate courses they wish to pursue, there is much to be 
said in favour of all British universities, including those of the over- 
seas Dominions as well as those of the United Kingdom, agreeing that 
whatever evidence of general education is satisfactory to one British 
university (whether in the United Kingdom or in the Dominions) 
shall be accepted by every other British university. The Canadian 
or Australian who, after qualifying to enter one of the universities of 
his Dominion, discovers that the particular studies he wishes to 
follow could better be pursued in some university of the Mother 
country, wiU then be qualified to enter upon his studies in the 
United Kingdom so soon as he has brought his special knowledge up 
to the required standard. And he will not, as at present^ too often 
happens, have to return to general school studies in order to pass a 
new test of general knowledge. 

* Having regard to the distinction we have drawn between transitional and 
terminal types of study, and to our observations on p. 347 above, we suggest 
that the examiners concerned with the general part of a university entrance test 
had better not be persons who are learned (see above, p. 357) in the subjects in 
which they are examining. Professors of the natural sciences might well examine 
in English those matriculation candidates who are not intending to make a special 
study of English in the university, while professors of history or literature should 
be able to examine the non-scientific candidates in science. 



III. 23. 4 TYPES OF EDUCATION 395 

So far as students attending Secondary Schools in England are 
concerned, the minimum standard of general education required 
might well be marked by the School Certificate*. Or, alternatively, 
and with a view to avoiding such evils as are inherent in any system 
of external examinations, the university or universities of any 
province might well accept, as evidence of general education, a school 
leaving certificate awarded by the authorities of certain Secondary 
Schools recognised by the university or universities for this purpose. 
Such certificates might be awarded on the pupil's school record com- 
bined with his performance in an internal examination in which his 
schoolmasters would be assisted by an external assessor appointed 
by the university of the province. Any tendency of particular 
schools to abuse this privilege could be counteracted by striking those 
schools off the recognised list. 

Special arrangements are required for testing the general knowledge 
of candidates, especially those of mature age, who are approaching 
the university otherwise than through the normal avenue of the 
Secondary School |. For any school-boy examination]: — the School 
Certificate examination or any other — is, by its very nature, unsuited 
to older men who, since leaving school, have spent several years in 
obtaining a wide experience of life. The alternative examination here 
in question should have much in common with the London University 
examination referred to above, or the Joint Matriculation Board's 
alternative examination for ex-service men. In other words, it would 

* Compare Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee's Report : ' It is not to be expected 
that the universities will be content with a mere pass in the First School Examina- 
tion, but we think that any university could obtain sufficient evidence for general 
education by demanding either a pass with credit in a certain number of subjects 
or the passing of the First School Examination together with some measure of 
success in the Second Examination.' {Loc. cit. p. 59.) 

f Among such candidates will be those who, as we shall see later, should be 
given facilities for entering undergraduate courses many years after leaving school, 
because, during those years, they have proved themselves to possess very exceptional 
qualities. Some of the most successful students of applied science and technology 
are already to be found among men who were enabled by scholarships (represented 
in our diagram by arrows on the twenty-years ordinate) to enter the university 
direct from industry. Increased facilities of this kind are needed. 

I Compare Sir Joseph Thomson's Report, p. 60: 'It happens not infrequently 
that in consequence of some change of plans candidates wish to enter a university 
long after they have left school, perhaps after a period of occupation in some 
kind of technical work. It seems unreasonable to expect such candidates to shew 
the same knowledge of the subjects of a secondary school course as may fairly 
be required of school boys. We therefore recommend that the universities should 
not require them to pass the ordinary matriculation examination, but should make 
special arrangements to test their fitness to enter on university work. We have 
ascertained that most of the universities would favour such a change. The number 
is not likely to be so large that a special test of each individual candidate would 
present serious difficulties.' 



396 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 4 

be largely viva voce in character, and aim specifically at testing the 
width of the candidate's knowledge and his power of expressing it in 
English, rather than his familiarity with any particular branch of 
school study, whether it be history, mathematics, geography, or any- 
thing else. Care must be taken to ensure that the alternative examina- 
tion shall be no easy option that will encourage boys, who have some 
hope of ultimately entering a university, to leave school before they 
have passed the School Certificate examination*. When such an 
alternative test of the general education of men of riper years has 
become operative, existing matriculation examinations, in so far as 
they are intended to test general knowledge, might well come to an 
end, as Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee have suggested f ; for the 
(external) School Certificate or the (internal) leaving certificate will 
suffice as evidence of the general education of boys who are entering 
the university direct, or almost direct, from Secondary Schools. 

But, as we have said J, before entering upon an undergraduate 
(honours) course, a candidate, by whatever path he is approaching 
his university, should be required to have reached the standard of 
the Higher School Certificate examination in the subject, or group 
of subjects, which he is going to make his special study in the uni- 
versity. We are here in agreement with the Royal Commission on 
University Education in London, who go so far as to say that 'The 
university should draft its regulations for admission with a view to 
making the Higher School Certificate... the normal qualification for 
registration.' § Our contention that the test for special knowledge 
should depend upon the particular Faculty or honours school which the 
candidate desires to enter, is supported by another finding of the 
same Commission : it suggests that students who stay at school long 
enough before going on to the university might ' make some definite 
preparation for the Faculty they intend to enter.' || 

* We suggest, however, that the scope of the School Certificate examination 
should be extended so as to form a final test for senior, as well as for intermediate, 
secondary education; so that, by supplementing these extended School Certificates 
by passing at the Higher School Certificate level in the subjects which they wish 
to study in a university, men who are approaching the university by way of 
senior secondary education and part-time classes instead of by the normal avenue 
of the Higher Secondary School, would be able to qualify for admission to honours 
courses without first having to pass a matriculation examination in general subjects 
some years after they have left school. 

■f See Report, p. 59. % See above, p. 392. 

§ Final Report, p. 40. This has now (1920) been done in the Faculty of Tech- 
nology of Manchester University. 

II Final Report, p. 40. A similar opinion was expressed in evidence given to 
the Board of Education's Consultative Committee and recorded in that Committee's 
Report on ' Examinations in Secondary Schools ' by Sir William M'Cormick who 



III. 23. 5 TYPES OF EDUCATION 397 

§ 5. Undergraduate Studies. 

These observations upon the conditions of admission to under- 
graduate courses were introduced by our remark* that the courses 
of study followed by most undergraduates in English universities 
should resemble the work now required for honours, rather than for 
pass, degrees. To this point we now return in order to justify our 
claim that the former rather than the latter should be the staple 
provision made by universities for their undergraduate students. 

Honours courses in English universities to-day differ from pass 
courses in two principal respects. In the first place honours courses 
are, as a rule, of higher standard than pass courses. It is true that 
many undergraduates find it harder to obtain a pass degree at 
Cambridge or Oxford than to obtain a third class in some of their 
triposes or honours schools. But, taking English universities as a 
whole, it may be said that in order to obtain a degree in honours it 
is necessary to study a single subject, or group of subjects, for three 
years from the standard marked by the Higher School Certificate 
examination, while the pass degree can be secured after three years 
university work by a student who has matriculated, but has not 
reached the Higher School Certificate standard in any of his subjects 
before entering the university. The first difference, then, between 
honours and pass degrees is the far higher standard of knowledge 
of some subject, or group of subjects, required for the former than for 
the latter. 

This difference in standard is, as a rule, much greater than the 
difference between the standard of knowledge required of the honours 
man and that required of the passman at the outset of their university 
courses; for, while the former concentrates his attention upon his 
special subject or group of subjects, the latter concerns himself equally 
with several separate branches of knowledge, and so fails to reach 
high attainment in any of them. Indeed, this lack of coherence of 
pass courses in English universities separates them from honours 
courses by a far wider gulf than the difference in standard to which 
we first drew attention. Professor Archer f has recently emphasised 

said that he did not want to 'impose the same examination on each profession 
and each Faculty.... While specialising to some extent the student should certainly 
continue to receive [in a Higher Secondary School] an all-round education.... 
Probably, however, it would not be necessary to demand the same high level of 
attainment in the general subjects as in the special ones.' 

* See above, p. 392. 

f See The Passman by R. L. Archer, Professor of Education in the University 
College, Bangor. 

G. E. 26 



398 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 5 

this latter distinction. After describing how, during the seventeenth 
and eighteenth centuries, the universities, not only of England but 
also of France and Germany, were out of touch with the most pro- 
gressive thought of the nation and with its general aspirations, 
Mr Archer continues : 

The decay affected the Universities of France and Germany as well as 
those of England ; but in both those countries an earlier effort was made to 
counteract it. [In England] the Nineteenth Century Revival represents 
in many respects a return to the older traditions. It was largely effected 
by the institution of honours courses, which rejected the principle of balance 
and reverted to the principle of unity.... We have only to think what the 
influence of the Universities would be if it depended solely on their pass 
courses, and we shall see that these courses have been a comparative failure. 
It is the success of the honours courses which has led us to regard this 
failure with indifference. It has concealed their failure from the general 
public, which even now hardly realises the enormous differences covered 
by the letters M.A. But are we justified in attributing their failure to the 
principle of balance [between several separate subjects] ? A crucial instance 
exists which appears to supply an answer; the pass B.Sc. courses of our 
modern Universities, where this principle has been abandoned, have 
succeeded*. 

Mr Archer, after speaking of the success of certain foreign university 
courses in stimulating their students, proceeds : 

From what does this stimulus arise? As in all the other cases where 
Universities have succeeded, it springs from inspiring unity of purpose... 
but beyond furnishing another illustration of this fundamental principle, 
the system does not help us. . . [In fact] little help wiU be obtained by looking 
abroad for models, since the distinction between honours and pass courses 
is pecuUar to our islands. Nor will it be of great assistance to collate the 
various courses which exist at the individual Universities of the United 
Kingdom. Fundamentally they are aU based on the same principle. London 
University set the pattern. Its aim was to widen the scope of studies, and 
thus it brought into even greater prominence than before the idea that 
a pass course should be composed of a variety of separate subjects, to each 
of which the student should be expected to devote an equal amount of 
attention. The newer Universities in the main followed the London lines, 
and the older Universities have almost unconsciously followed in the same 
direction. The differences between one pass course and another are not 
differences of principle. Those of the older Universities may be easier; the 
three final subjects may in one case be taken successively and in another 
concurrently; in one University each subject may be passed separately, 
whereas in another a pass is awarded on the joint results in all subjects; 
one University may examine at the end of each of the three years, another 
only at the end of the first and third. These are matters of detail; on more 
fundamental matters all are agreed. All assume (i) that a pass course for 
* Loc. cit. pp. 9, lo, II. 



III. 23. 6 TYPES OF EDUCATION 399 

the B.A. degree should include not less than three subjects; (2) that, while 
some subject or subjects may be compulsory, others may be chosen by the 
student from a given number of alternatives; (3) that the different subjects 
are intended to train the student in different ways, not to combine to produce 
a single effect; (4) that some at least of the subjects should therefore be 
quite unlike the rest in general character*. 

Thus the honours courses of EngHsh universities differ from pass 
courses not only in being of higher standard but also in being far 
more coherent, and therefore better adapted to increasing the general 
abiUtyf of the most able| young men whom the country has been 
able to select to receive the highest type of education. For both 
these reasons, honours courses make better use of the resources of 
English uni versifies §; but it is doubtless true that some of them 
would do well to aim at forming a wider single interest without 
sacrificing the essential singleness of aim. 

It is therefore to honours courses, rather than to pass courses, 
that we shall principally look in the future for an essential part of 
the training of members of Class A, for the men with creative minds, 
inventors of new appliances and processes, men who shall not merely 
be able to follow existing practice but also to cope with new problems 
and even to lead in new lines of advance. And our undergraduate 
courses, if they succeed in producing men of this type, will do so, 
not because of the knowledge they impart, wide though it be, but 
because of the stress they lay on the acquisition of skill in thinking || — 
a high degree of ' g' — along with knowledge. It is general ability, 
skill in thinking, skill in applying old knowledge to new situations, 
rather than knowledge itself without such skill, that now as always 
marks the really practical man. If, in fact, his undergraduate course 
can, in Huxley's phrase, ' give him real, precise, thorough and practical 
knowledge of fundamentals,' the candidate for membership of Class A 
may well wait for the comparatively terminal courses provided by 
subsequent practical experience (whether in works, law chambers, 
hospitals or elsewhere), post-graduate evening classes, and private 
reading to develop further his technical and professional information 
to a marketable standard. Whatever letters he may be able to write 
after his name, his undergraduate course should have aimed at making 
him a Bachelor of Arts, skilled in the art of learning, and only 

* Loc. cit. pp. 13, 14 (italics mine). f See above, pp. 353, 361. 

I We have seen on p. 327 how specially important is the development of 'g' in 
the case of future members of Class A. 

§ The deficiency of these resources, not in quality but in quantity, was referred 
to on p. 371 when we were discussing the vertical scale of our diagram. 

II See above, p. 327. 

26 — 2 



400 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 5 

incidentally have given him a body of scientific knowledge capable 
of immediate application. Indeed, English universities would do well 
to consider whether, as with medicine so with other branches of 
applied science*, they should not postpone giving technical degrees 
until undergraduate courses have been supplemented, and their scope 
widened, by subsequent professional experience combined with univer- 
sity part-time classes. Technical degrees, like degrees in medicine, 
might then be recognised as qualifications to practise a profession f. 

This view just expressed of the chief aim of an undergraduate 
course insists that there shall not be overmuch lecturing. Every 
student should keep his chief energies for his private study, since it 
is his own rather than his teacher's activity that will develop his skill 
in thinking. At this stage of his education he is, as we have said, his 
own chief educator |. He must look upon his university teacher as 
someone to be 'learnt from,' rather than as someone to be 'taught by.' 
And yet every undergraduate should attend lectures by the most 
distinguished professors who should take part in the teaching of 
undergraduates, not because of the knowledge they are peculiarly 
able to impart, but because, as the Royal Commission on University 
Education in London has remarked, 'it is the personal influence of 
the man doing original work in his subject which inspires belief in it, 
awakens enthusiasm, [and] gains disciples.' § 

All undergraduates should also be afforded opportunities for 
studying subjects outside their own specialisms. In particular, 
students of technology and applied science should be encouraged to 
hear lectures on economics, applied physiology, and other aspects of 
the nascent science of industrial administration. Lectures by experts 
from industrial concerns and by business men should be provided 
in their interests. Visits to works, mills, and factories ought also to 
be arranged. Moreover, no student should be given his degree unless 
he can read his own special subject in at least one foreign language. 
But, despite all these facilities for, and encouragements to, studying 
subsidiary subjects so as to widen the students' single interests, it 
remains true that the chief aim of an undergraduate course should be 
to cultivate skill in thinking by concentrated study of deep lying 
principles in some particular branch of knowledge. 

In urging that the chief aim of an undergraduate course must be 

to cultivate skill in thinking, or, as we formerly said, to strengthen 

* Including not only physics, chemistry, metallurgy and other physical 
sciences but also economics, law, history. (See above, p. 197.) 
t See below, p. 409. J Cf. p. 271 above. 

§ Loc. cit. p. 29. Cf. also above, p. 392. 



III. 23. 5 TYPES OF EDUCATION 401 

Will or increase* ' g' rather than to impart information, we do not 
mean that such a course must be at all detached from practical things f . 
It is no more possible to develop skill in thinking without knowledge 
than to acquire skill in the use of tools without material to work 
upon. Technical knowledge is, in fact, a most excellent foundation 
and medium for cultivating skill in thinking % . 

To the technical knowledge which the future member of Class A 
has acquired as an undergraduate, he should go on adding after taking 
his degree ; and this is true, not only of the future engineer or research 
chemist, but also of the future theologian, or barrister, and indeed of 
the future members of all other learned professions §. 

While however the need of the country — a need that is no longer 
far in excess of the demand || — for men who have received the kind 
of training provided by the honours schools of English universities, 
requires that honours, rather than pass, courses should be the staple 
which the universities of this country offer to their undergraduates, 
passmen should not be excluded from these universities. While 
therefore the majority of undergraduate courses should, as we have 
said, lead to honours degrees, and, according to our diagram, be open 
only to a small^ percentage of the ablest young people, some provision 
must be made for less able men and women whose future walk in 
life makes it nevertheless desirable that they should spend at least 
three years under the influence of university students, and especially 
of their fellow undergraduates. In particular, such provision is needed 

* See above, pp. 137, 138. 

t It is more than half a century since J. S. Mill told St Andrews that: 'A 
university is not a place of professional education ' ; and, whatever may have been 
the case in 1867, it is certain that professional education is one of the functions 
of a university to-day. Thus the Royal Commission on University Education in 
London write in their final report : ' Both the history of educational organisation 
and a right view of the methods of university work appear to us to justify the 
inclusion of professional and technological studies within the University.' [Loc. 
cit. p. 33.) But the popularity of Mill's view is shewn by the following newspaper 
comment upon Sir Alfred Ewing's appointment as Principal of Edinbui'gh 
University: 'Without any suggestions to the detriment of Sir James A. Ewing, 
I think his appointment as Principal of Edinburgh University most undesirable. 
Academic circles generally will be of the same opinion,... he is an excellent man at 
his job. But his job happens to be engineering, explosives, and all that sort of 
thing, and such knowledge had better be kept, particularly in war time, in the 
departments where it can be of practical use. In any university it is out of place.' 
{Daily Sketch, 24th May, 1916.) 

J It will be observed how far we are from sharing the view quoted from a 
popular journal in the preceding footnote. 

§ Cf. p. 197 and footnote * on p. 400 above. 

li I.e. the need is increasingly realised by large employers who are thus in- 
creasing the demand. Cf. Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee's Report, pp. 72, 73. 

^ But much larger than the percentage of young people who at present enter 
universities in England. See p. 371 above. 



402 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 5 

for those who are to teach boys and girls between twelve and fourteen 
years of age, whether in the lower forms of Secondary Schools or in 
the highest standards of Elementary Schools, and for those who will 
take the first two years (fourteen to sixteen) of the work in the 
Part-time Secondary Schools that are now being established in 
accordance with the Education Act of 1918. A large majority, if not 
all, of these teachers should have received a university training and 
have obtained a university degree. But they will not ordinarily be 
able to continue their university studies beyond the three years of 
an undergraduate course; nor will it be possible for most of them to 
postpone to a graduate part-time course the acquisition of practical 
professional experience, such as the university-trained engineer 
obtains in a works during his college apprenticeship, or such as the 
university- trained physician or surgeon obtains during the last two or 
three of the five or six years' course that begins when he enters * his 
university. For these men and women, therefore, there is needed 
a special type of undergraduate course, more terminal and less 
transitional in character than those of the honours schools. These 
non-honours courses should be the pass courses of the future, but 
they must differ from the pass courses of to-day by becoming more 
coherent in character. Indeed, as Professor Archer has urged f, it is 
necessary to provide pass courses that shall form organic wholes, in 
place of the assemblages of heterogeneous studies that make up the 
pass courses of to-day. The standard of special knowledge required 
for admission to these pass courses may well be far below the 
Higher School Certificate standard which, we said J, should generally 
mark the beginning of an undergraduate course. 

But, while coherent pass courses, such as we have indicated and 
such as are more fully described in Professor Archer's book, must be 
provided, honours rather than pass courses should, as we said§, be 
regarded as the staple teaching which English universities offer to 
their undergraduates. 

§ 6. Graduate Study and Research. 

After taking their degrees in honours, the abler men will do weU 
to devote two years, either immediately following their graduation 

* This entry should, in future, normally take place at the age of eighteen and 
at the Higher School Certificate standard in some branch (preferably biological) 
of natural science. Cf. Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee's Report, p. 45. 

t Loc. cit. Chapter iv, especially p. 54. 

% See above, p. 390. 

§ On pp. 392, 401 above. 



III. 23. 6 TYPES OF EDUCATION 403 

or after a period of practical professional experience*, to further 
whole-time study combined with training in methods of research. In 
their provision for organised graduate study and training in the 
methods of research, EngUsh universities have, for the most part, 
lagged behind those of America and central Europe. But they are 
now alive to the deficiency and, with the aid of increased government 
grants, are taking steps to make it good. The establishment by most 
English universities during the last two years of a new research 
degree, to mark the satisfactory completion of at least two years of 
graduate study and research, is evidence that the universities now 
fuUy realise the need for courses of this kind. It is to be hoped that 
these courses will receive graduates from other universities at home, 
as well as from British and foreign universities overseas. Interchange 
of students between different universities, with all its attendant 
advantages for the students and for the universities concerned, can 
best take place at the stage marked by graduation!. Moreover, while 
every university in England may well attempt to provide the various 
undergraduate courses required by the province which it principally 
serves, no university can attempt to provide every necessary course 
of graduate study and research J. Transfer from one university to 
another on graduation should therefore be a feature of a national or 
international system of education. For example, Cambridge or Oxford 
graduates in engineering will often do well to spend two years of 
graduate study and research in a university that is geographically 
nearer to some centre of the engineering trade than are the older 
universities, and under the direction of professors and lecturers who 
are in intimate and continuous touch with neighbouring engineering 
works. Or again, any able young graduate will do well to devote two 
years to graduate study and research in Sheffield University before 
entering whole-time employment in a Sheffield steel works. Once 
more, the British undergraduate who develops exceptional capacity 
for mathematics will do well to proceed from his own university to 

* The diagram shews a single-headed arrow on the twenty-four years ordinate, 
to indicate that a few exceptional persons should be offered scholarships, with 
whatever maintenance allowance is necessary, in order to enable them to return 
from whole-time employment to graduate study and research in a university. 

f We notice in this connexion the single-headed arrow on the twenty-one years 
ordinate at the upper edge of the diagram. If we use the diagram to represent 
a national system of education, this arrow-head represents an influx of students 
from overseas; or, if we use the arrow-head to represent the system of education 
belonging to a particular English province, the arrow represents a transfer of 
graduate students from other universities, whether at home or abroad, to the 
university (or universities) of the particular province in question. 

J Cf. footnote * on p. 386 above. 



404 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 6 

Cambridge, there — perhaps after taking the second part of the 
mathematical tripos — to devote some time to research work in the 
principal British centre of mathematical learning. 

Courses of graduate study and training in methods of research 
are represented in our diagram as part of a system of education. But 
it is not on this account to be supposed that the training of students 
in methods of research is the only obj ect of research work in universities . 
For, in the first place, universities have for many centuries been the 
principal homes of research, both in this country and throughout 
Western Europe. As Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee report 'Great 
discoveries... have for the most part been made in the laboratories of 
the universities and, we think, will continue to be so.'* It is true 
that research upon certain industrial problems cannot be effectively 
completed outside the mills, factories, or workshops in which the 
problems have arisen ; unless indeed research laboratories be provided 
in which industrial processes can be carried out, either on the scale of 
twelve inches to the foot, or with a sufficiently close approximation to 
actual works conditions. Many private industrial concerns are there- 
fore establishing their own research departments. Meanwhile, the 
government Department of Scientific and Industrial Research is 
encouraging firms engaged in certain industries to form industrial 
research associations for each of the industries in question. Several 
of these new research associations contemplate the establishment of 
research institutes, in which industrial research on a works scale 
will be possible. It is, however, important that these new research 
institutes should, as far as possible, have their roots firmly planted in 
universities which have hitherto carried out researches of the kind 
in which the new associations are interested. Moreover, the industrial 
research institutes of the future must look to the universities, not 
only for the training of their researchers, but also for the investigation 
of many borderland problems that lie on the boundaries between 
different sciences, and that cannot be dealt with effectively in the 
research institute, either because it has not been equipped for the 
purpose, or, much more frequently, because its staff is qualified to deal 
with a narrower field of knowledge than that which universities make 
their own. Experience, both in this country and, especially, in 
America f, has shewn how productive of valuable results may be the 

* Loc. cit. p. 66. See also the quotation from p. 29 of the Final Report of the 
Royal Commission on University Education in London on p. 400 above. 

f See for example Mr T. L. Humberstone's paper on the Mellon Institute in 
the University of Pittsburg, published by the Board of Education's Department of 
Special Enquiries and Reports. 



III. 23. 6 TYPES OF EDUCATION 405 

cooperation between universities and manufacturing firms in in- 
dustrial research. In the laboratories of English universities, many 
investigators are already engaged upon industrial research, more or 
less according to the scheme associated with the name of the Mellon 
Institute*, Pittsburg. And sometimes investigations are carried on 
partly in university laboratories and partly in neighbouring works : 
an arrangement which perhaps affords the best means of training an 
investigator for industrial research, if only the professor responsible for 
the investigation, has free entry to the works, and a position there of 
sufficient authority to enable him to direct that part which is carried 
out in the works, just as he directs the remaining part in his own 
university laboratories f. And sometimes, too, a course of this kind, 
although it has been primarily designed as a training in methods 
of research, leads to valuable results that are capable of immediate 
industrial application. 

In fact, universities should assist these new research associations 
by training researchers; by forming the soil on which a nascent 
institute may begin to grow (its first researches being carried out, 
either wholly in the university laboratories, or partly there and 
partly in neighbouring works, mills, or factories) ; and, when the 
growing research institute has become big enough to extend into 
separate buildings of its own, by continuing to cooperate with the 
institute's researchers, especially where they are concerned with the 
borderland of the field with which the research institute is principally 
concerned. 

So the first reason why the training of students in methods of 
research is not the only object of research work in universities, is 
because one of the chief functions of a university will always be to 
extend and organise knowledge, or, in other words, to undertake 
research. And the second reason, to which we have already J alluded, 
is that the university professor or lecturer who is doing original work 
in his subject is best able to inspire his students diligently to study 
it and to make the necessary effort for its mastery. A third reason 
appears when we reflect that, if an attempt were made to train the 

* 'Over there the manufacturer who requires research into some industrial 
problem pays the main cost of the investigation, either at the special laboratory- 
belonging to the university or sometimes, on a large scale, at his own works. If 
a valuable discovery is made a Board of Arbitration determines the fee or donation 
payable to the researcher. This question of reward, it must be remembered, con- 
stitutes one of the difficult problems of research here as elsewhere.' The Marquis 
of Crewe in Ways and Means, Vol. i, p 441, 21st June, 1919. 

f Arrangements of this kind have been made between the College of Technology 
and certain engineering works in Manchester. 

X See above, p. 400. 



4o6 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 6 

future leaders of industry, as well as of other departments of public 
service, in an institution where research was neglected, and to train 
research workers in separate institutions elsewhere, a valuable 
opportunity would be missed of making our future leaders in politics 
and government, as well as in industry and commerce, realise the 
importance of encouraging research, and of appreciating and applying 
its results*. 

§ 7. University Part-time Studies. 

We have saidj that the future member of Class A should go on 
adding to his technical knowledge after he has taken his degree. We 
added | that the abler men should, on graduation, enter upon courses 
of advanced study and training in methods of research. The less able 
graduates should, however, pass directly into employment; but their 
continued education should not on this account be neglected. Already 
we have observed that part-time studies should, at every stage of 
education, preserve continuity § between whole-time education on the 
one hand, and whole-time employment on the other. Accordingly, 
the future member of Class A, who has entered employment on 
graduation, should continue to add to his knowledge and to widen 
his interest, not only in the practice of his daily employment, but 
also by attending post-graduate evening classes] | from time to time. 
So will he add what we have called ' terminal ' studies to the compara- 
tively ' transitional ' type of education which his honours undergraduate 
course has provided. So, too, will he keep up to date his knowledge 
of new advances outside his own particular line. And, if he is able to 
attend such classes taken by his former professor, his attendance will 
benefit his university as well as himself. At all events, the professors 
and lecturers who take university part-time classes in technological 
subjects, find that evening students who are engaged all day in 
industrial practice are hardly less effective than their own consulting 

* Compare the following quotation from Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee's 
Report : ' But it is useless to speak of particular reforms unless the need for reform 
is recognised. That scientific research and the scientific study and direction of 
industrial processes are necessary for the development of our industries and even 
for their maintenance in the face of foreign competition, is a proposition which 
in educated circles will not in these days be denied. But as one of our corre- 
spondents writes: " Scientific research on industrial problems is of no use whatever 
to an uneducated trade. Such a trade can neither state its needs with definiteness 
or accuracy, nor can it interpret into practice and utilise the results of research. 
Indeed, it does not feel the need for research and cannot therefore make a demand 
for it.... In some trades it will be necessary to wait for the full development of 
research schemes until we have a generation of leaders quaUfied to demand and 
make use of industrial research".' (Loc. cit. p. 75.) 

f See above, p. 399. J On p. 402 above. 

§ See above, pp. 360 and 372. || See above, pp. 399, 400. 



III. 23. 7 TYPES OF EDUCATION 407 

work* in keeping them in touch with recent industrial developments. 
Indeed, a university situated in a great centre of population — and 
especially a university whose whole-time courses, graduate or under- 
graduate, in applied science and technology are designed to prepare 
future members of Class A for positions of responsibility in the in- 
dustries of its neighbourhood — cannot hope to retain the sympathy 
and good will of the community to which it must look for material as 
well as moral support, if it neglects to provide terminal part-time 
courses for graduates and other men and women whose days of 
regular study are past, but who wish to keep abreast of the demands 
made upon them by their professions. The provision of part-time 
courses is, in fact, an essential function of a university in a great 
centre of population f. 

* The following extract from a reply by the present writer to a question 
(No, 15 (b) in the questionnaire) circulated by Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee 
in 191 7, is relevant in this connexion: 

' It will be well known to members of the Committee that the practice of most 
Universities in Great Britain and abroad is to allow professors and heads of 
departments — and sometimes their lecturers also — complete freedom to under- 
take private consulting work. In my view, this practice is preferable to any other, 
provided that every professor and lecturer furnishes the Vice-Chancellor, Principal, 
or other official representative of the Governing Body, with full particulars of 
all the private work that he undertakes and of the fees which he receives in respect 
of it. Obligation to furnish such reports will tend to check any tendency to 
repetition of routine work, which supplements academic incomes but adds little 
to the experience of the investigator or the reputation of the University. The 
Vice-Chancellor or Principal will recognise the confidential conditions under 
which private consulting work is undertaken, and the submission of his colleagues' 
reports to him, instead of to a committee of the Governing Body, will prevent 
industrial concerns who wish to obtain the confidential opinions of university 
professors from fearing that their private business may come to the knowledge 
of competitors who might possibly serve on such a committee. On the other 
hand, the Vice-Chancellor or Principal should be free to consult the Governing 
Body whenever, in his opinion, it is necessary to do so. With such safeguards 
against abuse, the value to a University of its professors obtaining a varied 
consulting practice is, in my opinion, so great as to render it undesirable that the 
University should ask professors to pay over [to it] their consulting fees in whole 
or in part, even in cases where their work involves the University in some slight 
cost for materials and apparatus. 

' It has been argued, on the contrary, that professors or lecturers should transfer 
to the Governing Body the whole of the proceeds of their private practice. In my 
view, such a policy must tend to discourage professors of technological subjects from 
developing a private practice, without which all their university work will suffer.' 

t Compare the Final Report of the Royal Commission on University Education 
in London : ' Although it may be true that the first and most urgent call upon 
the University is that made by its regular students, it could not hope to retain 
the sympathy and support of the community to which it must look for material 
as well as moral assistance, if it refused help and guidance to men and women 
who, though the days of regular study were passed, wished to keep abreast with the 
demands made upon them by their professions. A university in a great centre of 
population must be prepared to provide advanced instruction of a specialised kind 
for all classes of the community who are willing to receive it. A great deal of this 
work m.ust be done in the evening.' {Loc. cit. p. 33.) 



4o8 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 7 

Moreover, these university part-time classes should include within 
their scope, not only advanced and specialist studies bearing upon the 
professional work of graduates and other persons of similar education, 
but also extension lectures and tutorial classes — the latter perhaps 
under the auspices of the Workers' Educational Association — designed 
for members of Class B or C or D who, although they have passed the 
ordinary educational age, desire to modernise their ideas or enlarge 
their outlook. 

But we must not suppose that the continued education of university 
graduates who are just entering employment should be confined to 
university part-time classes. On the contrary, to assist with the 
further education of young graduates, who have just entered their 
employ, should be recognised as part of the duty which every business 
concern or government ofhce owes to the community; just as it has 
long been recognised to be one of the most important duties of a 
physician on the staff of a great Metropolitan hospital to assist in 
the professional training of students who, in many cases after com- 
pleting a three-year undergraduate course in one of the older universi- 
ties, are attached to the hospital medical school. The young barrister, 
also commonly a graduate, receives a similar professional training 
from the older member of the profession for whom he ' devils ' ; and 
the young curate from the vicar or rector under whom he works. 
Similarly, it is becoming more frequent for great engineering manu- 
facturing concerns to include among their staff an 'Apprentice Master,' 
part of whose business it is to supervise and direct the practical 
training of men who, after graduating in engineering, have entered 
the works for a two or three years' college apprenticeship*, which, 
combined with university part-time classes, will form the terminal 
courses of their professional training. We have already f indicated 

* Not long ago it was usual for manufacturing engineering concerns to demand 
a premium from the college apprentices as payment for the practical training 
here in question, and in certain parts of England engineering firms still ask for 
these premiums. In other districts, however, the practice of requiring premiums 
has been discontinued for some years, and of late, following the American practice, 
leading engineering firms have been willing to pay to college apprentices wages 
sufficient to maintain them during their college apprenticeship. In this way the 
firms in question have secured the pick of college graduates, and have thus been 
placed in a favourable position for the selection of permanent members of their 
designing, managerial, and commercial staffs. It is to be hoped that this practice 
will extend in England, and in this expectation we have excluded from our 
scholarship proposals in Chapter 25 those industrial bursaries by means of which 
the Commissioners for the 1851 Exhibition have enabled college graduates with 
no private financial resources to enter upon college apprenticeships in engineering, 
or other industries, in works where no wages were paid to college apprentices. 

f See above, p. 350. 



III. 23. 7 TYPES OF EDUCATION 409 

that, in the interests of continuity of education, it is hardly less im- 
portant that the Apprentice Master and his assistants should be in 
close touch with the universities from which the college apprentices 
come, than that the professors of these universities should be in 
intimate contact with the works into which their students go. It 
remains to add that the systematic training of young graduates, 
entering employment for the first time, should be entrusted to respon- 
sible officers like these Apprentice Masters, not only in engineering 
works, but, as we have said, in every department of pubhc and private 
business. When arrangements of this kind for the practical professional 
training of young graduates are in more general operation, it will be 
easier than it is now to give effect to the suggestion, made above*, 
that technical degrees should be instituted or reserved for men who, 
after satisfactorily completing an undergraduate honours course, have 
also satisfactorily completed an approved course of practical training, 
combined with part-time university study. 

§ 8. Senior Technical Education. 

The education of future members of Class A has been considered 
at some length because of the special importance of the service which 
members of this class may render to the community. Paradoxical 
though it may appear at first sight, there is yet good reason to believe 
that every individual member of Class B, or Class C, or Class D, will 
be more effectively helped towards the fulfilment of the main purpose 
of his life, by the perfection or the improvement of the education of 
the leaders of the community to which he belongs, than by the 
improvement or perfection of the education which he himself receives. 
If, for example, national leaders plunge the world into war, the hfe- 
long purposes of everybody else are likely to be frustrated. Or, to 
take a less glaring instance, if the leaders of an industrial concern are 
incompetent, the work, however perfect, of the draughtsmen, under- 
managers, craftsmen, or repetition workers — in fact, of all that firm's 
workers, whether in Class B, C, or D — may be rendered futile. Good 
craftsmanship is wasted on an article of bad design, while good 
craftsmanship, cheapness, and every other attribute that belongs to 
effectively organised production, is wasted if the products meet no 
human need. 

But, when once future members of Class A are being effectively 
selectedf and educatedfor theirresponsible work, the effective selection 

* On p. 400. 

t So (it will be remembered) that equal opportunity is afforded to all, quite 
irrespective of their parents' economic or social class. 



410 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 8 

and education of the future members of our other classes become of 
very great importance. Relatively to that of members of Class A, the 
education of persons who are to occupy less responsible positions (and 
especially, as we shall see, the education of the future members of 
Class C and Class D) has received far too little attention in the past. 
Indeed, many authorities seem to have neglected it altogether; or, 
rather, to have been content with a system of education described by 
the metaphor of a ladder, or of a single broad highway, along which 
all men would proceed together, but for very different distances, so 
that only the few would reach the goal, while the vast majority — in- 
stead of following to its end an educational path specially designed 
to lead to their own field of activities : social, be it remembered, as 
well as vocational — would fall by the wayside (or, in the case of the 
ladder metaphor, fall off with more or less of a crash), leaving incom- 
plete* a course of study planned for the others who had gone further. 

If, then, in the following paragraphs we discuss the education of 
the future members of Classes B, C and D in less detail than we 
have employed for describing the education of future members of 
Class A, it is not because of any underestimate of the immense im- 
portance of rightly educating the great majority of citizens, but 
because the results so to be obtained may be destroyed by defective 
education of the leaders of the people. 

It is the general experience of university teachers, and especially 
of those who are concerned with the more abstract studies undertaken 
for honours degrees, that only a small proportion of men are fitted by 
nature and nurture (including their previous education) for studies of 
this kind. Principally for this reason, but also because the community 
could not afford to provide a university training for all its members, 
the majority of the future members of Class B will enter em- 
ployment before they are twenty years old, and without first having 
received a university training. We have, in our diagram, taken the 
age of eighteen as the modal age at which members of this class will 
discontinue whole-time education, and pass into employment com- 
bined with part-time study. This has long been the age at which most 
of the best educated boys and girls who are not going on to the 
university first enter employment, whether in private businesses or 
public departments. And, in recent years, a number of industrial 
concerns, who lay themselves out to continue the education of young 

* We are reminded of the following words quoted above (pp. 354, 355) from the 
Ministry of Reconstruction's Pamphlet: 'A cottage completed and ready for 
occupation may be of more value to the community than the foundations of a 
palace which have never been carried above the damp-proof course.' 



III. 23. 8 TYPES OF EDUCATION 411 

people as, at different ages and with different qualifications, they 
enter the firms' employment, recognise eighteen as the normal or 
modal age at which apprenticeship begins for the class of apprentices 
or learners coming next below those who have completed university 
or college courses. 

According to our diagram, boys and girls who are to become the 
members of Class B should devote the last two years of whole-time 
education to a course of study that is more terminal in character 
than the transitional (advanced secondary) course followed by young 
people of the same age who are preparing to enter university honours 
schools. Senior technical education is the name by which we have 
described courses of the terminal type here in question. We have 
already* observed that the future member of Class A should be 
offered an increasing variety of courses of study as his education 
proceeds from junior secondary, through intermediate secondary and 
advanced secondary, to undergraduate studies. So, too, the variety 
of senior technical courses must greatly exceed that of intermediate 
secondary courses. It must also exceed that of advanced secondary 
courses. Indeed, different varieties of senior technical courses must 
prepare for different industries, for several branches of commerce, for 
domestic occupations, for fine art, for music, as well as for other kinds 
of occupation. That does not mean that the courses in question must 
be narrowly vocational in character. Indeed, as we sawf, terminal 
courses should include a wider range of subjects than are included in 
transitional courses for pupils of the same age and previous education. 
But the English studies, and the other subsidiary (or, as Professor 
Campagnac calls them, 'tributary') subjects that form part of these 
senior technical courses, must centre around, and be tributary to, the 
central interest which the student will have in the occupation that 
he is about to enter J. 

It is to be carefully noted that the proximate aim of senior 
technical education is not to prepare for further whole-time study, 
but for employment combined with part-time study. The importance 
of not losing sight of this difference in aim is well brought out in a 
report by Dr C. A. Prosser on the Boston Mechanic Arts High School §. 

* See above, p. 386, footnote *. f See above, p. 359. 

+ Cf. above, pp. 353, 360. 

§ ' A Study of the Boston Mechanic Arts High School, being a Report to the 
Boston School Committee by Dr C. A. Prosser' published by Teachers' College, 
Columbia University, New York City, 1915. Dr Prosser finds that the Boston 
Mechanic Arts High School, that was intended to provide what we have called 
senior technical education for boys between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, was 
instead endeavouring to prepare boys to enter the Massachusetts' Institute of 



412 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 8 

At the same time, as indicated by the ringed single arrow-head on 
the eighteen-years ordinate of our diagram, a very few of the ablest 
young men completing their senior technical education should be 
enabled, by scholarships and maintenance allowances, to proceed to 
undergraduate studies in universities*. 

When, in the next chapter, we discuss the functions of schools, 
colleges, and other educational institutions, as distinguished from the 
aims of the various types of education which each institution may 
provide, we shall observe that the greater part of the provision of 
senior technical education should be made by Polytechnics, local 
colleges or, as they are most frequently called, 'Senior Technical 
Schools, ' rather than by the Higher Secondary Schools that provide 
advanced secondary education for pupils of the same age. One 
reason is that, if all the (one in ten) boys between the ages of 
sixteen and eighteen who, according to our diagram, should be 
receiving senior technical education were to receive it in the same 
schools that provide advanced secondary education for only 4 per 
cent, of the boys of the same age, the outlook of the Higher Secondary 
Schools towards the universities would be spoiled, and the aims and 
ideals of advanced secondary education would be in danger of being 
obscured by the equally worthy, but quite different, proximate aim 
of senior technical education. 

Moreover, senior technical education commonly requires more 
specialised, and often more costly, equipment, for which the funds of 
Higher Secondary Schools are altogether inadequate ; whereas, if the 
equipment in question is provided in Senior Technical Schools, it can 

Technology or the engineering departments of other institutions of university 
rank. Dr Prosser writes: 'The School fails to meet the needs of the 85 per cent, of 
its pupils who do not go to the engineering college, because it serves primarily 
the interests of the 15 per cent, of its pupils who do.' Or, again: 'The Committee 
has said it is not the function of the school to prepare for the engineering college... . 
[But] instead of aiming to prepare boys for advantageous entrance into industry 
on completing the high school course, there is every evidence that the controlling 
aim of the school is... to fit them to enter the engineering college.... TAe course of 
study is not the right kind to give the training desired by the School Committee. It is 
too abstract and too far removed from the practical experiences the pupil will 
meet when he goes into industry. The academic part of the course is essentially 
the same as that of any general high school.' {Loc. cit. pp. 8, 9.) In fact, the course 
fails as a senior technical course because it possesses too much of the character 
of an advanced secondary course. 

* Thus the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education in their ' Interim 
Report on Scholarships for Higher Education' [Cd. 8291] write: 

'Though it is improbable that in the immediate future there will be a larger 
supply of well-qualified candidates from Higher Secondary Schools, useful recruits 
for the Universities may be found among the day-students of Senior Technical 
Schools, and among those who have obtained instruction by evening study and 
part-time study in works.' {Loc. cit. p. 64.) 



III. 23. 8 TYPES OF EDUCATION 413 

also be used for the education of part-time students, whose admission 
to Secondary School buildings is undesirable for reasons that will be 
considered in the next chapter. Accordingly, our diagram shews that 
four-fifths of the provision of senior technical education is made by 
Senior Technical Schools while only one-fifth of it is made by Higher 
Secondary Schools. It follows that the intermediate secondary 
education which should prepare for senior technical courses should, 
for the most part, be provided by ordinary or Lower Secondary 
Schools, rather than by Higher Secondary Schools which would other- 
wise be attended by the majority of their fourteen-to-sixteen years old 
pupils for two years only, to the very great disadvantage of the 
Higher Secondary Schools and of all their pupils. But those boys or 
girls who receive their senior technical education in Higher Secondary 
Schools — as for example in the secretarial or domestic science form of 
a girls' high school*, or in the engineering form of a ' public school' j — 
should, as indicated in our diagram, have received their intermediate 
secondary education in the same Higher Secondary School. 

The very important place which senior technical education has 
to fill in a national or provincial system of education is as yet hardly 
realised. The 10 per cent, (of sixteen-to-eighteen years old boys), which 
our diagram represents as receiving education of this type, will number 
no less than 10,000 in a province inhabited by 5,000,000 people. Of 
this 10,000, our diagram shews that there should be 8,000 attending 
whole-time two-year courses in the Senior Technical Schools of the 
province. And yet, even in the Manchester province, the present 
number is barely 5 per cent, of that which our diagram proposes for 
ten years hence ! 

§ g. Advanced and Miscellaneous Part-time Studies. 
Just as the future member of Class A, who enters employment after 
completing his undergraduate course at the modal age of twenty-one 
(or, if he proceeds to graduate study and research, at, say, twenty-three 
or later), should combine university part-time studies with the further 
education which his employment should give him, rather by design 
than at haphazard, so the boy who enters employment on completing 

* According to our diagram, the completion of intermediate secondary educa- 
tion, marked by the School Certificate, should be a condition of entry to senior 
technical as well as to advanced secondary education. But the region to the right 
of our diagram, as has been explained, is concerned with the education of boys 
and young men rather than of girls and young women. The question whether 
girls attending Higher Secondary Schools should be required to obtain a School 
Certificate before being admitted to secretarial, domestic, or other senior technical 
forms we leave open ; but we suggest an affirmative answer. 

f E.g. at Marlborough; or the engineering forms of Oundle. 

G. E. 27 



414 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 9 

his senior technical education at the age of eighteen, should combine 
attendance at part-time classes with directed* experience in the 
practice of his occupation. For the majority, these part-time studies 
should take the form of organised advanced part-time courses ex- 
tending over some three years, and, while retaining the terminal and 
descriptive character that belongs to part-time courses in general, 
carrying a student's knowledge of his specialism up to the standard 
nowadays marked by an ordinary degree. The provision of part-time 
classes of this kind, meeting either in the evening or (preferably) on 
two half-days a week, is in our view part of the function of every 
university that is situated in a great centre of population f. Our 
diagram therefore shews the university as providing those advanced 
part-time courses which are specially designed to meet the needs of 
persons who have received whole-time education up to the age of 
eighteen. Other advanced part-time courses, for future members of 
Class B who are approaching their field of service otherwise than by 
the normal path of senior technical education, will need to be provided 
by Senior Technical Schools. Moreover, there will be a certain pro- 
portion of future members of Class B for whose part-time education, 
on first entering employment, some alternative to advanced part-time 
courses will need to be provided. Such provision is described as 
miscellaneous part-time classes in our diagram. 

In conformity with a principle already J laid down, the variety 
of senior technical courses required by future members of Class B 
will be exceeded by the variety of part-time courses upon which most 
of these young people will next enter. 

Our diagram shews twenty-one as the modal age at which or- 
ganised courses of part-time study are discontinued by future members 
of Class B. It is not on this account to be supposed that the education 
of the average member, or even of any member, of this class finally 
ceases at this early age. Not only will he remain subject to the 
educational influences of the practice of his employment, but by 
private reading, attendance at occasional university lectures § or 

* See above, p. 408, where the importance of directing the practical experience 
of young graduates, and of employing an Apprentice Master or other official 
mainly or partly for this purpose, is urged. Here we emphasise the importance of 
similarly directing the practical experience which the future member of Class B, 
or indeed of any other class, obtains on first entering employment. 

t Cf. the passage quoted on p. 407 (footnote |) above from the Final Report of 
the Royal Commission on University Education in London (p. 33). 

J See above,- pp. 386 and 411. 

§ For example, a number of works managers in the Manchester district have, for 
the last two academic years (1918-20), been attending late afternoon lectures de- 
livered in the College of Technology on various aspects of industrial administration. 



III. 23. 9 TYPES OF EDUCATION 415 

courses of lectures, as well as in other ways, he will have opportunities 
of modernising his ideas and enlarging his outlook long after he has 
passed the ordinary educational age*. 

§ 10. Senior Secondary Education. 

According to the system of education represented in our diagram, 
one-half f of the young people of this country are, within ten years, 
to receive whole-time secondary education until the age of sixteen. 
If this proportion is considered in connexion with such statistical 
enquiries as that which Mr Rowntree carried out at the beginning of 
the century in York J, and from which it appears that the proportion 
of men, who are engaged in the kind of occupations that in our 
classification § belong to Class C, is approximately! | that shewn on the 
right of our diagram, and, if we assume that the ratio, which the 
number of repetition workers in Class D will, ten years hence, bear 
to the number of craftsmen and others of Class C, will not greatly 
differ from the ratio that obtained in York at the time of Mr Rowntree's 
enquiry, it will follow that the majority of future members of Class C 

* Cf. p. 372, especially footnote J, above. 

f See above, pp. 371, 372 and footnote * on p. 369. Our diagram represents 
72 per cent, of the young people who continue in whole-time attendance at school 
up to the age of sixteen (or 36 per cent, of the whole population of the same age) 
passing into employment at that age, while only 28 per cent, (or 14 per cent, of 
the whole population of the age in question) continue to receive whole-time educa- 
tion for two more years at least. At present the majority of pupils in Secondary 
and Junior Technical Schools discontinue their attendance before attaining the 
age of sixteen. But the Education Act of 1918 encourages continued attendance 
up to the age of at least sixteen so as to obtain exemption from obligation to attend 
part-time day classes during the following two years. On this account, and because 
of the general awakening throughout the country to the advantages of remaining 
at school at least until sixteen years of age, illustrated by the fact that the 
Manchester Local Education Authority is treating the provision of whole-time 
education for 50 per cent, of the population up to the age of sixteen as a practical 
proposition, it is not unreasonable to suggest, as in our diagram, that sixteen 
rather than an earlier age will, ten years hence, mark the earliest period at which 
secondary education is discontinued by large numbers of pupils. But for reasons, 
including economic reasons similar to those which we have already given for not 
proposing that everyone should receive a university education, we are not pro- 
posing that within the next ten years more than 14 per cent, of the young people 
between sixteen and eighteen years of age should be receiving whole-time education 
during that period. That is why our diagram shews 36 per cent, of the population, 
or 72 per cent, of the young people who receive whole-time secondary education 
up to the age of sixteen, as passing into employment at that age. 

J See Poverty by B. Seebohm Rowntree. 

§ See above, p. 326. 

II We are, for the purpose of the approximation that we require here, identifying 
with the members of Class C the heads of those families in York whose incomes 
exceeded thirty shillings a week in the year 1900, but who did not keep domestic 
servants. This was Mr Rowntree's Class D who formed 32-4 per cent, of the whole 
population. At the time of his enquiry the unskilled labourer's wage in York 
varied between eighteen and twenty-one shillings a week. 

27—2 



4i6 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 10 

will not enter employment before the modal age of sixteen. In other 
words, the normal educational path that leads to Class C will begin 
with elementary education up to the age of eleven plus (or, as our 
diagram shews, twelve), will then follow a transitional course of 
junior secondary education up to fourteen, and then a terminal course 
of senior secondary education up to the age of sixteen. Whole-time 
education, ending at sixteen, will in turn be followed by part-time 
education, supplementing practical training in the actual practice of 
a trade or other employment. 

Of elementary, and junior secondary, education we have already 
spoken. It is at the conclusion of junior secondary courses that the 
normal educational paths followed by future members of Classes A 
and B diverge from that followed by future members of Class C. 
While the former proceed to intermediate secondary education between 
the ages of fourteen and sixteen, the latter enter senior secondary 
courses covering the same age range. The difference between senior 
and intermediate secondary education is that between terminal and 
transitional courses. It has already* been considered at some length. 
Suffice it here to repeat that, while the transitional course is concerned 
with making the intermediate zone of the pupil's growing single wide 
interest-system correspond as closely as possible with a number of 
the most central, most valuable, and most closely inter-connected 
essences of the endarchy of science, the terminal course makes the 
innermost group of elements in the pupil's intermediate zone 
correspond, not so much to a group of innermost essences of the 
endarchy of science, as to a group of essences that will form a natural 
centre for the interest which the student will increasingly take in the 
trade processes or craft which will form his principal service to his 
fellow-citizens. In other words, the terminal course short-circuits f 
connexions in the endarchy of science in order that, subject always 
to his supreme central purpose, the pupil's interest may be centred 
around his particular service to the community, rather than around 
some region of the front line of the (incomplete) endarchy of science as 
it gradually extends inwards towards the attainment of the goal of 
scientific thought. 

We have already insisted upon the practical importance of dis- 
tinguishing between the aims of transitional and terminal courses for 
persons of the same age and previous education. This distinction is 
likely to meet with more opposition, when applied to differentiate 

* See above, Chapter 21, § 8. 

f See above, pp. 230, 237 and 351. 



III. 23. 10 TYPES OF EDUCATION 417 

between intermediate and senior secondary courses, than when used 
to mark the distinction between advanced secondary and senior 
technical education at a later stage. And yet it is hardly less necessary, 
in thought and practice, to separate intermediate from senior secondary 
education in the last two years (fourteen to sixteen) of an ordinary 
(or Lower) Secondary School, than to separate advanced secondary 
from senior technical courses in the last two years of a Higher Second- 
ary School. In particular, Dr Prosser's arguments * for distinguishing 
between advanced secondary education and senior technical educa- 
tion in Boston are equally apphcable to the case of intermediate 
and senior secondary education in this country. Sir Joseph 
Thomson's Committee were clearly of that opinion. Speaking of the 
work of Junior Technical Schools which, in their view, should be 
regarded (as in our diagram) as belonging to secondary education f, 
the Committee quote, apparently with approval, the view of the Board 
of Education, that ' pupils should not be diverted to Junior Technical 
Schools [or, as we should rather say, not receive senior secondary 
education] if they are intended ultimately to pass on to more advanced 
full-time technical courses' because 'it is not possible to provide a 
curriculum that is suitable both for the boy who is passing directly 
to industry [at sixteen] and for the boy who is to continue his 
education 'J beyond that age. Moreover, as we have already § seen 
from evidence given by Mr Bruce to another committee, the curricula 
of ordinary (or Lower) Secondary Schools are, in fact, being altered 
so as to approximate more closely to the terminal type, rather than 
to the transitional type to which belong the older classical sides of 
Higher Secondary Schools. 

In conformity with our principle that the more nearly the end of 
whole-time or part-time education approaches, the greater should be 
the variety of available alternative courses— a principle which we 
applied when we said that a much larger number of senior technical 

* See above, p. 411, especially footnote §. 

f Thus the Committee write : ' We think, as we have already said, that there 
is room in our scheme of education for those between the age of twelve and sixteen 
for schools where no foreign language should be compulsory and where a definite 
bias should be given towards practical education in connection with Science and 
Mathematics, but we see no reason why these schools should not be regarded as 
part of our secondary system even when their practical work is organised with a 
view to the predominant industry' of a neighbourhood. 

'We recommend that Junior Technical Schools should be strengthened and 
developed into such a form of secondary school, retaining some of their distinctive 
features, e.g. that a reasonable proportion of the staff must have had practical 
trade experience of occupations for which the school prepared.' {Report, loc cit. 
P- 43-) 

X Report, p. 43. § Quoted above on p. 359. 



4i8 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION IH. 23. 10 

courses were needed than the five varieties of advanced secondary 
course which we have previously outlined* — there is need for a much 
larger variety of senior, than of intermediate, secondary courses. 
Indeed, in so far as geographical considerations permit, every province 
should provide senior secondary courses preparing for each of a large 
number of different groups of trades or crafts practised in the neigh- 
bourhood. But, we repeat, the differences between the several 
varieties of the same type of education — even where these differ- 
ences are most marked (as in the case of terminal courses that belong 
to senior secondary education) — do not imply that the whole subject 
matter of the courses should be different. Many so-called general 
subjects will form part of all or of many of the different courses, 
although these subjects may be differently taught in each. The 
writing of English f, for example, is to receive attention throughout 
every course represented in our diagram, from the Elementary 
School child's essay to the graduate's thesis for a research degree. 
In the same way, physical exercises J, of one kind or another, ought 
to form part of the education provided by every school and college 
and might well be compulsory for those who do not voluntarily, and 
to a sufficient extent, take part in organised games. 

It is unnecessary, for the purpose of the present enquiry, to attempt 
a description of all the many varieties of senior secondary courses 
that need to be provided by the Secondary and Junior Technical 
Schools of every English pro\'ince. Suffice it here to say that, while 
senior secondary courses should, subject always to the supreme 
central purpose, have as their central subject the craft or trade or 
other employment which the pupil shortly hopes to enter §, it is 
no part of their business to attempt to teach a trade. Their object 
is rather to prepare a boy for apprenticeship (in its widest sense, and 
by no means limited to industrial crafts) by teaching every subject in 
close relation to the interest which the boy feels in his future calling ; 
just as at Osborne and Dartmouth the boys' interest in the Navy is 
used to awaken and keep alive their interest in every lesson, whatever 
its subject may nominally be. Experience has shewn|| that boys will 
thus make more progress in these general or 'tributary' subjects 
than if they were studying them in a school which had no specific 
aim. 

We may conclude our account of senior secondary education by 

* See above, pp. 386, 387, 388, 411 and 414. 

•)• Cf . pp. 347, 348 above. J See above, p. 386. 

§ Cf. p. 353 above. 

II Cf. the reference to the Bootle Junior Technical School on the following page. 



III. 23. 10 TYPES OF EDUCATION 419 

the following extract from a paper* on 'Junior Technical Schools' 
prepared by the present writer in July, 1907: 

A brief review of the common characteristics of these schools may help 
to elucidate the cardinal elements which should be reproduced in each new 
Junior Technical School. 

In the first place, the schools are not intended to teach a trade.... It is 
commonly accepted that the right place to learn a trade is in the workshop, 
but that the workshop training can be both faciUtated and increased by 
the right kind of previous education. Thus, taking Professor Hopkinson's 
illustration, students may properly make experiments on the flow of water 
in pipes, and so get a knowledge of the fundamental physical laws governing 
such flow; but a school is not the place in which to teach students how much 
fall experience has shewn to be desirable in a drain or sewer. In the Junior 
Technical Schools, therefore, attention is given rather to Mathematical 
Drawing and Practical Plane and Solid Geometry than to the memoris- 
ing of conventional representations used by an engineer's draughtsman. 
Similarly in a commercial school, in lieu of teaching any particular method 
of book-keeping. Arithmetic is taught with a special reference to the keeping 
of accounts. 

The various subjects of the curriculum are taught in relation to the 
occupations for which the school is preparing, and thus in relation to one 
another. For example, in the Shoreditch School, preparing boys for wood- 
working trades, Geography is taught by telling the boys where the various 
woods on which they have been working come from and the way in which 
they are brought to this country; and History is taught, I understand, by 
going backwards from the present time and tracing the Industrial History 
of England and of the other countries in which the Geography has aroused 
an interest. Again, in the Bootle School, the subjects dealt with in the 
lessons on Manufacturing Processes and Workshop Practice have so im- 
proved the English composition that... 'some of the essays were on a totally 
different plane from those usually met with at this age.' Further, the 
practical work is not primarily intended to develop skill in trade processes, 
but is rather used to illustrate the theoretical teaching and to awaken the 
interest of adolescent boys; and, once awakened, the interest can be 
extended to other subjects. In this way the [pupils] are given a 
practical turn of mind, by being enabled to perceive a connection between 
theory and practice, so that book-knowledge becomes to them a useful 
tool rather than something to grow rusty on a shelf and only to be taken 
down on those rare occasions when they realise its need. At the same time 
a wide interest is developed, due to the association in the scholar's mind 
of a large number of ideas of different kindsf. 

* The paper was printed for private circulation. At the time only thirteen 
Junior Technical Schools had been established in England, most of them during 
the preceding two years. 

f Further evidence of the efficiency of senior secondary education as hitherto 
provided in Junior Technical Schools is furnished by the suggestion of the com- 
mittee appointed by the Council of the North-east Coast Institution of Engineers 
and Shipbuilders that 'Much greater use should be made of Junior Technical 



420 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. lO 

We have already* seen how important it is that a teacher who 
is seeking to develop a single wide interest in each of his pupils should 
himself possess an interest that is both single and wide. We went 
further and pointed out f that the teacher of young part-time students 
engaged in the same or similar occupations should share his students' 
deep interest in their daily work, and, in fact, possess a single wide 
interest resembling as closely as possible the particular kind of single 
wide interest that he and his colleagues, who are teaching the same 
group of students, are endeavouring to form in each of them. In other 
words, the teacher of young part-time students should have a single 
wide interest-system, of which the intermediate zone, immediately 
connected with the most central purpose-elements, corresponds to the 
particular form of service which his students are rendering to their 
fellow men. This principle need not, however, be restricted in its 
application to the case of part-time students. Thus we have already 
urged that, in the interests of continuity in education, the sixth-form 
master I , concerned with advanced secondary education in a Higher 
Secondary School, should be in close touch with the university work 
for which he is preparing his pupils; while the university lecturer 
in engineering or medicine or any other branch of applied science 
should, in turn, be in close touch with the works or hospital or other 
establishment in which the young graduate will continue his profes- 
sional training. So also is it desirable that the form-masters § — and 
not merely such specialist teachers of technical or commercial subjects 
as may then still be required — who take part in senior secondary 
education, should have had practical experience of, and still take a 
lively interest in, the group of occupations into one or other of which 
their pupils are about to pass. 

§ II. Intermediate Part-time Studies. 

As in the case of future members of Class A and of Class B, preser- 
vation of continuity in the normal education of future members of 
Class C requires, not only that those who taught them during their 

Schools in pre-apprenticeship education' (Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee's 
Report, p. 43); and by the prominence which the Council for Organising British 
Engineering Industry in 1916 gave to a similar recommendation (loc. cit. p. 2). 

* See above, p. 346. f See above, p. 346. J See above, p. 349. 

§ Thus Dr Prosser in the Report from which we have already quoted (on p. 41 1 ) 
urges that, in the case of senior technical education leading to industrial occupations 
in Massachusetts, 'all instructors be required to have some industrial experience 
as a qualification for service and those who do not have such contact or cannot 
acquire it be gradually transferred to other High Schools [or as we should say 
Higher Secondary Schools] and replaced by those who do possess such qualifica- 
tions.' {Loc. cit. p. 10.) 



III. 23. 11 TYPES OF EDUCATION 421 

last whole-time terminal course should be in touch with the business 
concerns or public departments which are going to employ them from 
the age of sixteen, but also that these firms or departments should 
provide 'Apprentice Masters' or Welfare Workers thereafter to 
direct the young people's daily work. By contact with the Secondary 
Schools or Junior Technical Schools from which the young people 
come, as well as with the part-time teachers whose classes they 
attend from the time of entering employment, these Apprentice 
Masters will help to preserve continuity in their education as gradually 
they pass from whole-time study to whole-time employment. 

The part-time classes to which we have just referred play an 
essential part in the education of future members of Class C. So — 
although it is true that the Education Act of 1918, even when towards 
the end of the next ten years its provisions become fully operative, 
will not compel young people, who have received satisfactory (whole- 
time) secondary education until the age of sixteen, to continue in 
attendance at part-time day classes until the age of eighteen — we 
have, in our diagram, represented part-time education as continuing 
at least until the age of eighteen for everybody who is not receiving 
whole-time education. While, for some time to come, many of the 
part-time classes at which attendance is not compulsory may have 
to be conducted after working hours, evidence is accumulating to 
shew that the more progressive industrial and commercial concerns 
will allow aU their employees, who are under eighteen, to attend day, 
instead of evening, classes; so that it may soon be usual for all 
young persons under eighteen employed in the chief industries — at 
least of the Manchester district — to attend part-time classes during 
working hours, whether or not they are compelled to do so. And it is 
most unlikely that any considerable number of young people engaged 
in these industries will abstain from attending part-time courses while 
they are under eighteen years of age. 

Again, the future member of Class C will not ordinarily discontinue 
attendance at part-time classes even on reaching the age of eighteen. 
He vnll, instead, continue for several years to attend classes of a more 
or less advanced character that bear upon the practice of his trade 
or other employment. Accordingly, it will be the function of the 
part-time studies which he pursues during the first two years (sixteen 
to eighteen) of his employment, to prepare him for the more advanced 
studies that come later. The first part-time course which he will 
follow should therefore differ from that which he would follow were 
he expecting to discontinue part-time studies on reaching the age of 



422 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. U 

eighteen, and the difference will be of the kind that distinguishes 
transitional from terminal whole-time education. To the more 
transitional of these two types we have given the name of intermediate 
part-time education, and to the more terminal type that of senior 
part-time. While therefore, as we said, part-time education as a 
whole is more terminal in character than whole-time, intermediate 
part-time differ* from senior part-time courses much as, in the case 
of whole-time studies, intermediate secondary differs from senior 
secondary education. 

Our principlef requires that the necessary varieties of intermediate 
part-time courses will exceed in number the varieties of senior 
secondary courses, and will in turn be exceeded in number by the 
varieties of advanced trade courses and other miscellaneous part-time 
classes, which are represented in our diagram as providing the final 
part-time education of future members of Class C. Our use of the 
word ' final ' must not, however, lead us to forget that the young man 
or woman who discontinues attendance at organised courses of part- 
time study, at or soon after the age of eighteen, should have an 
opportunity of returning later pn to part-time studies that may have 
no direct bearing upon the particular kind of service that he or she 
is rendering to the community |. 

§ 12. Senior Elementary Education. 

When future members of Classes A, B, and C have been transferred 
from the Public Elementary Schools at about the age of twelve to 
follow the normal § educational paths that lead to their respective 
fields of service, the work of the future members of Class D who are 
left behind should differ in type from the elementary education 
received by all children below that age. It might well be centred in, 
but not of course confined to, handwork || during the remaining two 
years of compulsory school attendance, and so have much in common 
with the training of boy scouts or girl guides. 

* For a further account of this difference see § 13 of this Chapter on pp. 424 
et seq. below, especially p. 428. f See above, p. 386. 

X Compare footnotes J and § on p. 372 above. 
§ See above, p. 376. 

II Compare the reference to practical instn'ction in The Education Act, 1918: 
'Clause 2. (i) It shall be the duty of a local education authority so to 

exercise their powers under Part iii of the Education Act, 1902, as 
(a) to make, or otherwise to secure, adequate and suitable provision by 

means of central schools, central or special classes, or otherwise; 
(i) for including in the curriculum of pubhc elementary schools, at appro- 
priate stages, practical instruction suitable to the ages, abilities, and 
requirements of the children.' (Italics mine.) 



III. 23. 12 TYPES OF EDUCATION 423 

Education of this type is described in our diagram * as senior ele- 
mentary, in order to distinguish it from elementary education that we 
have described as appropriate for children under twelve. Mr Fisher's 
Education Act makes it the duty of a local education authority to 
provide this senior elementary education either in central schools or 
in central or special classes or otherwise. In large centres of population, 
there is indeed much to be said for not extending the work of the 
ordinary Elementary Schools beyond the modal age of twelve, when 
the elementary education of children should come to an end: the less 
able children who are not transferred to junior secondary education 
elsewhere would then proceed to Central Elementary Schools in which 
they would receive the whole of their senior elementary education. 
But a large proportion of the child population of this country is to 
be found in rural or semi-rural districts where separate Central 
Elementary Schools for children over twelve cannot conveniently 
be provided. Our diagram therefore shews that the greater part of 
the provision of senior elementary education is made by ordinary 
Elementary Schools. 

Senior elementary education is, as we have said, terminal in type. 
We have already f illustrated its difference from the transitional 
junior secondary education for children of the same age. Being 
terminal, senior elementary education should be provided in more 
varieties J than are required in the case of junior secondary courses. 

Wherever the conditions of a district render it probable that a 
considerable proportion of the children receiving senior elementary 
education in the same school will enter employment of a particular 
kind, the handwork that forms the central interest of the senior 
elementary curriculum may well be related to that type of employment. 
It must, however, be clearly understood that the object of this 
connexion between school handwork and subsequent employment is 
not the production of efficient wage slaves, but, as in the case of 
senior secondary education to which we have already § alluded, to 
increase the children's interest in all their school work. For example, 
in a Lancashire town where it is certain that most of the children 
will enter some branch of the cotton industry, the school handwork, 
in which the senior elementary education of the district is centred, 
might well involve handling and observing the cotton plant and 
samples of yarn and fabric in various stages of production. No 
attempt need be made to develop manipulative skill, for example, in 

* Facing p. 319 above. t See above, p. 344 and pp. 358 et seq. 

% See p. 386 above. § See above, pp. 418, 419. 



424 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 12 

piecing ends. But the children might receive object lessons in the 
course of which they would measure various geometrical, botanical, 
mechanical, physical, chemical, and other properties of cotton. In so 
far, then, as their other studies — natural science, mathematics, and 
even geography and history — were made tributary to this central 
interest, so far would their interest in their whole curriculum be 
deepened and become more likely to stimulate them to efforts at 
concentrating attention. 

§ 13. Junior and Senior Part-time {Secondary) Education. 

One of the most serious, if not the most serious of all, discon- 
tinuities in the education of English boys and girls is that which 
results when pupils pass from the Elementary Schools at about the 
age of fourteen — and hitherto in many parts of England before that 
age — into whole-time employment unaccompanied either by attend- 
ance at part-time classes or by educational supervision in their daily 
occupations. Such supervision the trade apprentices in bygone days 
used to obtain by close association with a master-craftsman, and it 
is now provided by the Apprentice Master* and his assistants for 
boys employed in some of the most progressive manufacturing concerns 
of this country. 

Evidence has multipHed to prove that this discontinuity has had 
serious consequences for the education of a majority of English men 
and women. The increased interest in education, that began in 
1914-15, encouraged several groups of educators and other people 
to publish programmes of educational reconstruction. Indeed, the 
present writer, in the course of an address delivered in February, 1917, 
was able to say that several of these recent programmes 

agree in proposing that nobody's whole-time education should cease 
before the first end of term after the attainment of the age of fourteen; 
and that every employed person should be required by law to attend part- 
time classes during working hours for not less than one whole day or two 
half days per week throughout the following three or four years. The 
Education Reform Council, the Workers' Educational Associationf, the 

* See above, pp. 350, 408, 409. 

t The paper from which this quotation is made continues: 'The programme 
of the Workers' Educational Association asks for compulsory attendance at part- 
time day classes for not less than twenty hours per week between the ages of 
fourteen and eighteen. The chairman of the Education Reform Council (Dr W. 
Garnett) suggested, in a recent speech, what seems to me an admirable way of 
giving effect to the wishes of the Workers' Educational Association without 
necessarily going beyond what the other bodies, including the British Engineers' 
Association, would be prepared to support. His proposal is that all employed 
persons between fourteen and eighteen years of age should be required to attend 



III. 23. 13 TYPES OF EDUCATION 425 

Association of Technical Institutions, and the Council for Organising British 
Engineering Industry* have all issued reports which include these recom- 
mendations.... 

Mr Fisher was quick to seize the opportunity afforded by this 
remarkable consensus of opinion. The Bill which he proposed to 
Parliament in the autumn of 1917, and the revised Bill which ulti- 
mately reached the Statute Book in the following year, made part- 
time education — to be provided during working hours on the equivalent 
of one day per week — compulsory ap to the age of eighteen for those 
who had not received satisfactory whole-time education at least until 
the age of sixteen. In view, however, of the difficulties inherent in 
making so great a change f, the Act provides that part-time education 
between the ages of sixteen and eighteen shall not become compulsory 
until seven years after all young people up to the age of sixteen have 
been compelled to receive either whole-time or part-time education. 

The continuation schools — or Part-time Secondary Schools as we 
shall prefer to call them — that will be established in accordance with 
this Act will make the principal provision for the education of the 
future members of Class D between the ages of fourteen and eighteen. 
When, as indicated in our diagram, most future members of Class C 
receive whole-time secondary education until the age of sixteen, the 
Part-time Secondary Schools will be mainly, although not exclusively, 
attended by future members of Class D. Even then, however, it will 
be necessary for Part-time Secondary Schools to meet the needs of 
two different groups of students. To the first group will belong those 

part-time classes in working hours for not less than sixteen or twenty hours a 
week; but that Local Education Authorities should be authorised to reduce this 
number of hours to, say, eight in cases where they are satisfied that the young 
people in question are receiving suitable training during the actual practice of 
their employment. Such an arrangement would do much to discourage unnecessary 
entry into blind-alley occupations.' 

* See above, footnote f on p. 325. 

t According to our diagram a province of 5,000,000 people, in which 50 per 
cent, of young persons remain in whole-time attendance at Secondary or Junior 
Technical Schools until the age of sixteen, will require accommodation in its day 
continuation schools, or Part-time Secondary Schools as they are called on the 
diagram, for 90,000 boys, and for a similar number of girls; or a total of 180,000 
boys and girls between fourteen and eighteen years of age. Assuming that one- 
fifth of this number attends the part-time secondary schools at any one time — 
for attendance is only required on the equivalent of one whole day per week — 
one-fifth of 180,000, or, say, 36,000 places, will need to be provided in the Part- 
time Secondary Schools of the province. In Birmingham, or in Manchester and 
Salford, where the population slightly exceeds 1,000,000, the number of Part-time 
Secondary School places needed within ten years will therefore be at least 7,200; 
and, if by that time the proportion of the population receiving whole-time secondary 
education up to the age of sixteen is less than the 50 per cent, in our diagram, the 
necessary number of Part-time Secondary School places will be correspondingly 
increased beyond 7,200. 



426 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 13 

who, like many of the young persons engaged by manufacturing 
engineering concerns in repetition work, or hke many of the boys and 
girls in the spinning rooms or weaving sheds of cotton mills, are 
employed in connexion with a great industry with which they may 
remain connected during the greater part of their lives and which 
in any case is capable of forming the centre of an interest which it is 
the function of the part-time school to widen, and, widening it, to 
make not only better workmen, but also better citizens. To the same 
group will also belong those future members of Class C for whose 
whole-time education until the age of sixteen provision has not yet 
been made. The second group will contain boys and girls in 'blind- 
alley' occupations, or, in other words, whose employment is of a 
temporary character or has little bearing upon the work which they 
afterwards intend to do. The same school will often provide for both 
classes of students: it is, as we shall see more clearly in the next 
chapter, the school rather than the curriculum that is the unit of 
corporate life. 

It will be convenient to describe as 'vocational' the courses 
provided for the first of our two groups. But, as will shortly appear, 
our use of this word does not imply that the young people are being 
educated for anything less than their whole lives. The school is to 
fit them for all their activities, social as well as vocational. Such a 
' vocational ' course should be conducted under the supervision of an 
advisory committee, containing representatives of employers and 
work-people. The same committee might supervise several similar 
courses in the same school or in several schools. On the other hand, 
one and the same school might have several advisory committees 
according to the different groups of trades or employments in which 
its students are engaged. 

A 'vocational' course provided in a Part-time (day) Secondary 
School for persons belonging to our first group, whether their employ- 
ment be industrial, commercial, domestic, or any other, should include: 
(i) some practical work connected with their employment; 
(2) a study of the principles underlying the practice of that 
employment ; 

, (3) a study of the bearing of the employment in question upon 
the well-being of the whole community, together with other so-caUed 
'citizenship' subjects, including especially English. 

The intention of the practical work is not primarily to teach an 
employment or to develop manipulative skill. It is rather to give the 
more varied practical experience that the students want but cannot 



III. 23. 13 TYPES OF EDUCATION 427 

obtain in the ordinary practice of their vocation; and so to connect 
the students' employment with all their continuation school work. 
The stronger this connexion is, the greater the interest that the 
students will find in their vocation, in their school, and in their whole 
lives ; and the more likely will their education be to make them happy 
and effective servants of each other and the community. 

The second element in the curriculum is the study of principles 
underl)dng this practice. Of the usefulness of such a study we have 
already* spoken. We may add here that 'an interesting example has 
been furnished by Juddf, who found that children could be taught 
to hit a mark lying in water just as readily by rule of thumb as by 
a clear method based on the knowledge of refraction of light. When, 
however, he changed the depth of the mark below the surface of the 
water, the rule-of-thumb scholars had to do all their learning over 
again, whereas those who had learnt [the principle involved]... were 
soon as successful under the new conditions as under the old ones.' | 

But perhaps the most important section of the 'vocational' 
curriculum is that which bears directly upon citizenship. This third 
section should, first of all, relate the whole curriculum to the central 
purpose of the students' lives, and should therefore include some 
reference to the ethics and ideals of their employment, which, to 
focus our ideas, we may suppose to be industry or commerce. It 
should also include an elementary study of the economic conditions 
which govern wages and hours of labour; economic geography, 
beginning with an account of the origin of the materials which the 
students handle or with which they are otherwise concerned in the 
practice of their craft; economic history, consisting mainly in bio- 
graphical studies of the great men and women whose lives have been 
of special importance in the development of the employment group in 
question; and, possibly, other subjects studied from a similar point 
of view. Such studies will render the pupils less liable to be misled 
in later life by unsound economics or sociology; and may also enable 
them to take an active and intelligent part in solving social problems 
from inside. 

For persons belonging to our second group, employed in occupa- 
tions which cannot form the centre of their interest,Part-timeSecondary 
Schools must provide the centre of the interest as well as its periphery. 
Most young people between fourteen and sixteen years of age will, as 

* E.g. on pp. 353, 357 above. 

I Educ. Rev. June, 1908, pp. 36, 37. 

X Quoted by Professor Spearman, Journal of Exp. Ped. Vol. 11, 1913-14, p. 252. 



428 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 13 

we have said*, find such a centre of interest in the handwork which 
secures for boy scouts and girl guides the various stars and badges 
that mark their proficiency in cookery, spHcing, astronomy, carpentry, 
or what not. Such handwork, especially if combined with outdoor 
activities, is well adapted to form the centre of interest of non- 
vocational courses, both because boys and girls like itf, and also 
because interest in doing things resembles an emotional interest in 
that both are apt to intensify and render permanent intellectual ideas 
with which they are connected J. 

Since many of the employments practised by young people 
belonging to our first group are not entered until the age of sixteen, 
the junior part-time courses that form the first two years work of 
the Part-time Secondary Schools will more often be non-vocational 
in character than the senior part-time courses that form the concluding 
two years work of these schools §. Accordingly, and in conformity 
with a principle of which we have already made several applications ||, 
there needs to be a greater variety of senior than of junior part-time 
courses. 

It remains to remark upon the difference between senior part-time 
courses — and especially perhaps the vocational courses where the 
distinction is most likely to be overlooked — that are terminal, and 
the intermediate part-time courses that must be more transitional in 
character because they prepare for more advanced part-time work 
that is to follow. In the senior part-time course, what we have called 
citizenship studies are, as we have just seen, of paramount importance. 
But the intermediate part-time courses of ten years hence are, 
according to our diagram, to be attended by young people most of 
whom will not only have previously received four years of whole- 
time secondary education, but will further widen their interests by 
subsequent terminal courses of study. In common with other transi- 
tional courses of study, intermediate part-time education will therefore 
tQnd to go more deeply into a small group of comparatively abstract 
studies, so that the students may become familiar with principles, 
laws, and generalisations, many of the applications of which to the 
students' principal interests will be deferred until after the period of 
intermediate part-time education. 

It is much to be regretted that most of the provision of part-time 
education for young people between sixteen and eighteen years of 

* On p. 279 above. f See above, p. 279, footnote *. 

X See above, pp. 59, 60, 278. § See the diagram, facing p. 319 above. 

II See above, p. 386, footnote *; and p. 418, footnote *, for further references. 



III. 23. 13 TYPES OF EDUCATION 429 

age has, hitherto, been intermediate rather than senior — transitional 
rather than terminal — in type*. The consequent omission of citizen- 
ship subjects from senior part-time courses has resulted in the neglect 
of a great opportunity of educating the majority of part-time students 
during the critical years of adolescence. 

§14. Byways of Education. 

In the preceding sections of this chapter we have briefly described 
the normal f paths by which future members of Class A, Class B, Class 
C and Class D should, ten years hence, reach their respective fields 
of active service to their fellows and the community. In the course 
of this description we have referred to each of the sixteen types of 
education represented in our diagram. We have now to observe 
that the system of education, represented in our diagram, includes 
alternative or abnormal educational ways in which future members 
of Classes A, B and C may be educated. Indeed — as we shall again 
point out when, in the next chapter but one, we discuss a national 
scholarship system — account must be taken of the fact that some 
young people will, on account of illness, late development, or other 
exceptional circumstances, miss being selected at the normal time 
for transfer to a higher type of education, although their subsequent 
achievements, either during their whole-time education or when later 
on they are combining employment with attendance at part-time 
classes, may fully justify the transfer of these few exceptional people J 
to higher education that will prepare them for a higher class of 
service later on. 

Thus, if we may take engineering training as typical, our diagram 
shews that, of the boys who pass, at the age of fourteen or at least 
before the age of sixteen, from senior elementary education into the 
ranks of 'boy labour' in manufacturing works, 10 per cent, will, by 
excellence in their employment combined with good work in their 
junior part-time studies, secure promotion at the age of sixteen to 
intermediate part-time studies, designed to prepare for Class C, while 
the remaining 90 per cent., most of whom will ultimately belong to 

* The central and local education authorities were, until recently, in the habit 
of denoting successive years of part-time education by successive numbers from 
one to seven inclusive. The text, however, is concerned with emphasising the 
distinction between intermediate courses (say, T 3 and T 4) that aim at preparing 
for advanced courses (say, T 5, T 6 and T 7), and senior courses. The latter 
should not be described as T 3 and T 4, if by these symbols are understood courses 
that prepare for T 5 ; for senior courses, unlike intermediate courses, terminate 
(but see pp. 372, 422 above) organised education for the time being. 

f See above, p. 376. % See above, pp. 374, 375. 

G. E. 28 



430 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 23. 14 

Class D, will transfer at the same age to senior, instead of to inter- 
mediate, part-time studies. This promotion is to be accompanied by 
promotion from the ranks of 'boy labour' to the higher class of ' trade 
apprentices,' most of whom follow the normal educational path to 
Class C and so enter employment from Junior Technical Schools at 
the age of sixteen. Again, the best boys of this (trade) apprentice 
class, including a sprinkling of the boys who have been promoted into 
it from the ranks of boy labour, will obtain promotion into the still 
higher class of 'special apprentices,' most of whom, on their way to 
Class B, have entered employment at the age of eighteen after 
completing (whole-time) senior technical courses of study. Moreover, 
a few exceptionally able trade apprentices may be enabled, by 
means of scholarships combined with maintenance allowances, to 
enter upon a whole-time senior technical course at an age* which 
will exceed by a year or so that at which senior technical education 
is begun by those who approach it by the normal way of intermediate 
secondary education. But those future members of Class B who will 
not have the benefit of whole-time senior technical education between 
the ages of sixteen and eighteen, will pass directly from intermediate 
part-time to advanced part-time courses of study, which will, as a 
rule, be provided in Senior Technical Schools on two half daysf, 
or on three evenings, a week. (An alternative to these advanced 
part-time courses is open to engineering students in certain districts. 
The alternative, on the North-east coastf, consists of 'sandwich' 
courses of study provided by Senior Technical Schools, and occupying 
three consecutive winter sessions of five months each, following upon 
two years of works training combined with intermediate part-time 
studies. And, just as students who follow advanced part-time courses 
on one day a week or in the evening are generally able to do so without 
suffering any reduction in wages, so the engineers and shipbuilders 
on the North-east coast, whose apprentices receive their training on 
this ' sandwich system ' §, pay their apprentices wages during the five 

* These scholarships are represented in our diagram by the single-headed 
arrow on the seventeen-years ordinate. 

t See above, p. 414. J For example, at Sunderland. 

§ This 'sandwich system,' which is alternative to advanced part-time courses 
in Senior Technical Schools, should be carefully distinguished from the better 
known 'sandwich system' in vogue in Scottish universities where, in view of 
the fact that the academic year in Scotland used to extend over little more than 
half the calendar year, engineering students were able to intersperse their under- 
graduate courses with long summers spent in obtaining practical experience in 
works. It has been suggested that the training of engineering students in English 
universities should follow this Scottish practice. Such a change would, however, 
result in engineering students keeping different terms from those kept by all the 



III. 23. 14 TYPES OF EDUCATION 431 

months that they are in the Senior Technical School, as well as during 
the seven months that they spend in the works or in the shipyards.) 
Once more, a small proportion of the ablest of these 'special 
apprentices' will, by excellence in their employment as well as in 
the advanced part-time courses* which most of them should be 
attending on one day a week or in the evening, secure scholarships f 
transferring them at about twenty years of age to (whole-time) 
undergraduate courses in a university or college of university rank. 
Having finished their undergraduate courses and taken their degrees, 
they will return, as 'college apprentices,' to practical work at their 
profession for the completion of their technical training for member- 
ship of Class A. 

other members of their university; with the result that engineering students 
would tend to become a class by themselves and so be debarred from obtaining 
their full share of those most important university influences that are discussed 
in our next chapter. 

* Organised advanced part-time courses will not be available for every possible 
variety of Class B occupation for which these ' special apprentices ' are preparing. 
Accordingly, the diagram represents 25 percent, of them as attending miscellaneous 
rather than organised advanced part-time classes. 

f Represented in our diagram by the two arrows, one with a wavy shaft, 
on the twenty-years ordinate leading from advanced part-time to whole-time 
undergraduate courses. 



28- 



CHAPTER 24 
TYPES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 

§ I. Public Spirit. 

In the preceding chapter we have been concerned with types of 
curriculum; with organised courses of study; with the educational 
influences of the schoolroom or lectureroom, laboratory or work- 
shop; and, most of all, with the strenuous intellectual discipline 
involved in private study of the right kind. We have now to take 
note of those other educational influences that ought to be no less 
strong, and no less characteristic, than that of any particular cur- 
riculum. The influences with which we are concerned in this chapter 
are of the kind that the older universities associate with residence and 
tutorial superintendence. They belong especially to the playing fields 
and the river; the school or college societies; the school or college 
chapel; the boarding houses, hostels, or rooms in college or out; the 
byways and purlieus, buildings, grounds, or neighbourhood of a school 
or college or university. In other words, we have now to consider 
what is sometimes called 'atmosphere'; the thing that peculiarly 
belongs to the school or college as a whole and not to any one side or 
section of it ; the thing that results in a characteristic point of view, 
and sometimes in distinctive mannerisms or even a distinctive manner ; 
the thing that may even remain the same or nearly the same from 
one generation to another, while the curriculum may have been 
altered almost out of recognition (so that some, at least, of the pupils 
or students are pursuing studies which, in the days of their fathers or 
grandfathers, were altogether outside the scope of the school or 
college in question) . Let us call this thing the ' spirit of the school ' or 
college or university. 

The emotional appeal of some of these influences first demands 
our attention, for we have seen* how specially important in the 
neurography are those elements which correspond to strong emotional 
interests. As we have also seenf, great use may be made of these 
emotional elements in building up a single wide interest-system. And 
so strong is the emotional interest which many famous schools and 
colleges are capable of arousing in their members, that it may be made 
to play a very important part in the educational process. Indeed, 

* See above, p. 89. f See above, p. 345. 



III. 24. 1 TYPES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 433 

just as we said* that the teacher of part-time classes should share 
his pupils' principal interests, and just as we went on to say, almost 
paradoxically, that the school boy whose main interest is in history 
should learn mathematics from a teacher who is qualified rather by 
his sympathy with the boy's interest in history than by his distinc- 
tion as a mathematician!, so now we observe that the master who 
is likely to be best able to form single wide interests in the younger 
pupils of a Higher Secondary School, requires, as his chief (but not 
of course his only) qualification, a full share of the spirit of the school, 
a deep understanding of its aims, a profound sympathy with its 
ideals, and that measure of athletic prowess which young school boys 
are apt to regard as an indispensable means of increasing the honour 
and reputation of their school. 

There is, however, some danger lest the feeling which a good 
school should arouse in all its pupils may be used, not merely as a 
means of deepening and helping to form their single wide interests, 
but actually as the centre to which all else is made subsidiary. But 
every good thing may be abused; and the danger to which we have 
just alluded does not excuse any neglect to increase the emotional 
appeal which every school or college ought to make. 

This appeal is due, in part, to associations with the past. To belong, 
for example, to a school which was founded by John Colet, the daily 
prayers of which were written for it by Erasmus, which produced 
Milton and Marlborough and other famous Englishmen, must make 
a deep impression upon every Pauline ; while membership of a college 
that produced Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, Clerk Maxwell and 
J.J. Thomson, may stimulate a Trinity man, and especially perhaps a 
Trinity physicist, to an extent that it would be hard to over-estimate. 
Venerable buildings, too — chapels, halls, great courts, and dreaming 
spiresj — deepen the emotional appeal made by the memories of 
great and famous men. It is true that a historic past and ancient 
buildings are beyond the reach of schools and colleges of recent 
foundation. But they too can strive to produce great men, and have 
in many cases already done so; they too, as they extend their buildings, 
can build beautifully, and that means, in the first place, simply and 
serviceably §. 

* See above, p. 346. + See above, pp. 346, 347. 

I Mr Compton Mackenzie's title for the third, or Oxford, section of his novel 
Sinister Street. 

§ Compare the remark, quoted at a recent conference of English universities : 
' I know of no reason why a Gothic building should not be well adapted to serve 
the purposes of a university, but I never saw one that was.' 



434 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 24. i 

We have been speaking of the emotional elements which member- 
ship of a great school or college renders available for inclusion in the 
single wide interest-system there being built up. We have now to 
speak of the direct educational influence that may be exercised by 
school or college life. We shall do so under three heads : mass influence, 
team work, and personal relationship. 

Under the name ' mass influence ' we allude to the effect of Uving 
for a period of years in the closest touch with an organised society 
whose ideals and outlook may remain the same or nearly the same for 
generations at a time. Sometimes there results an antiquated stand- 
point. Sometimes, however, a small school or college society succeeds 
in preserving ideals of heroic conduct, high thinking, patriotism, and 
search for knowledge, when, all around, moral and intellectual stand- 
ards are temporarily depressed. ' Continuity, tradition, and the trustee- 
sense which you find in an Oxford college or an Inn of Court — the 
sense that you hold for those who come after you what was held for 
you by those who went before,'* these it is, and the ideals of the 
public service connected with them, that tend to become impressed 
upon every member of a school or college in which they flourish. In 
short, hardly any man can spend long years in the company of 
people who share a common purpose without himself coming to share 
it too. 

By 'team work' we describe another direct influence of school 
and college hf e : namely, training in self-government ; social service, 
both to the members of the school community and, through school or 
college missions, to the outside world as well ; loyalty to a small society, 
that best prepares for loyalty to a larger national or international 
group later on ; and unselfish cooperation as an insignificant member 
of a cooperative bodyf . 

Lastly, under the heading of 'personal relationship,' we have 
referred to those educational influences which a school or college 
exercises by bringing together a number of boys or young men from 
different home surroundings and, in the case of many Higher Secondary 
Schools and universities, from different parts of the country and even 
from overseas. It is to her 'public schools,' whose pupils come from 
all parts of Great Britain and Ireland, that the United Kingdom is 
largely indebted for its unity. Of late years the ancient universities 

* Midas and Son, by Stephen McKenna, 1919, pp. 220, 221. 

f This aspect of school and college life has been well put by a former college 
tutor who has also seen service as a headmaster: the Rev. Canon W. Temple, 
in a presidential address to the Education Section (L) of the British Association 
at Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1916. 



III. 24. 1 TYPES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 435 

have also succeeded in bringing together young men who come, not 
merely from different counties, but from schools and homes of 
the most varied types. And at a recent* conference, called by the 
Imperial Education Committee of the War Office, it was stated that 
Oxford had done much towards unifjdng the English-speaking world 
by bringing together, under the terms of the Rhodes Trust, a number 
of scholars from all parts of the British Empire and the American 
Commonwealth. It is to be hoped that every British and American 
university at home, and overseas, will have a share in this work of 
harmonising the purposes and outlook of English-speaking people, so 
that they may work together for the good of the whole world. This 
aspect of university work was well put by Cardinal Newman who, 
writing in 1852, went so far as to say: 

I protest to you. Gentlemen, that if I had to choose between a so-called 
University, which dispensed with residence and tutorial superintendence, 
and gave its degrees to any person who passed an examination in a wide 
range of subjects, and a University which had no professors or examinations 
at all, but merely brought a number of young men together for three or 
four years, and then sent them away as the University of Oxford is said 
to have done some sixty years since, if I were asked which of these two 
methods was the better discipline of intellect, ...which of the two courses 
was the more successful in training, moulding, enlarging the mind, which 
sent out men the more fitted for their secular duties, which produced better 
public men, men of the world, men whose names would descend to posterity, 
I have no hesitation in giving the preference to that University which did 
nothing, over that which exacted of its members an acquaintance with 
every science under the sun f. 

§ 2. Universities. 

In applying these considerations to the system of public educa- 
tion that we hope to see brought into operation in England during 
the next decade, we shall not follow the order of the flow in 
our diagram % — from elementary and preparatory education at its 
beginning to graduate study and research at its end — but the reverse. 

Beginning then with the university, we first remark how fortunate 
it is for England that, with only one important exception, her most 
advanced study and research in applied science and technology form 
part of the work of her universities §. Anything which tends to 

* June, 1919. 

f Quoted in the Final Report of the Royal Commission on University Education 
in London, pp. 26, 27. J Facing p. 319 above 

§ Compare the following extracts from a memorandum by the British Science 
Guild dated April, 1919: 'Technical Education is intimately connected with 
the teaching and development of pure science. Higher Technical Education in 



436 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 24. 2 

segregate particular classes of students in separate institutions 
according to their different special studies, impairs the influence which 
a university is, as we have just seen, capable of exercising, and which 
it ought to exercise, in harmonising the ideals and purposes of the 
leaders of the people. 

The extent to which a university can exercise upon its students 
the kind of influences that specially concern us in this chapter depends, 
as Newman* saw, on the prevalence of residence and tutorial super- 
intendence in that university. The majority of the students entering 
English universities at the present time have been pupils of day 
schools where these influences are generally less than in the great 
boarding schools. And the homes in which these students have lived 
during their school life, and where they go on living as undergraduates, 
are too frequently lacking in intellectual interest: their home environ- 
ment has not familiarised them with big ideas, broad generalisations, 
or organised thought about life as a whole. 

While a university cannot immediately and directly alter the 
home conditions of its undergraduates, it can still do much to increase 
those of its educational influences which do not mainly belong to 
courses of study that lead to degrees or diplomas. Tutorial superin- 
tendence, for example, can be exercised in a non-residential university ; 
and the effect of long talks with one's tutor, either alone or in company 
with a small group of other undergraduates seated round the tutor's 
fire, may be very great indeed. A fortnightly essay f may afford the 
occasion for gatherings of this kind; but, in some of the most profitable 
of these tutorial hours, the written essays may hardly be mentioned, 
almost the whole time being occupied with a discussion that widens 
the student's interest and helps him to see the relation of his principal 
studies to modern life as a whole. Such informal talks afford senior 
members of a university an opportunity of sharing with their juniors 
the business of 'training, moulding, enlarging the mind' which, in 

particular, therefore, must be in intimate contact with the Universities and vice 
versa. The question of the further provision of Higher Technical Education cannot 
be considered apart from the question of the development of existing Universities 
and the formation of new Universities.' Cf. also the quotation from Mr Michael 
Longridge's presidential address to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers on 
p. 441 below. 

Already before the War the Verein Deutscher Ingenieure was pointing out the 
injury done to Germany by the separation of her Technische Hochschulen from 
her universities. In most German states the Technische Hochschulen (or technical 
universities) are not merely independent of the universities proper, but are 
actually located in different towns; and the Handels Hochschule at Cologne 
illustrates a tendency to separate the highest commercial, as well as the highest 
technical, education from the work of German universities. 

* See p. 435 above. f Cf. p. 400 above. 



III. 24. 2 TYPES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 437 

Newman's view, was so important a part of the duty that a university 
owes to its undergraduates. 

But there is no sufficient reason why universities that are at 
present mainly non-residential should not take steps to increase their 
influence by causing most of their undergraduates to reside, at any 
rate for a time, in colleges or hostels. Under a residential system, as 
we have already indicated, students have far better opportunities of 
educating each other than is otherwise possible : they may, in particular, 
develop qualities of leadership in connexion with debating, literary, 
scientific, technical and athletic societies, which never flourish so well 
under a non-residential system. 

The end we have in view does not necessarily require that every 
undergraduate should reside in a college or hostel during the whole 
of his undergraduate life. A long step, even if only a first step, will 
have been taken when at least one year's residence is required from 
every undergraduate. The great increase of hostel accommodation 
which this long first step would render necessary in the case of most 
modern English universities, outside London, could probably best be 
provided at some distance from the centre of the large town where 
the university's buildings are, for the most part*, situated. A group 
of residences placed within easy distance of the university town might 
provide the nucleus of a real university colony. The rapid improve- 
ment of electric transport that is to be expected within the next few 
years, will bring suitable country sites within less than half an hour's 
run from the middle of the city where the university buildings stand. 
Those modern universities which are situated in the largest centres 
of population would probably be well advised to consider the purchase 
(before improved means of transport increase the price) of land in 
the neighbouring country, for the purpose of providing residential 
accommodation . 

It will, of course, be objected that the increased cost of university 
education involved in our proposal would be prohibitive. But, even 
if the whole of this increase of cost had to be met from pubHc funds, 
the additional burden would not be excessive. Thus, it is safe to 
estimate that an undergraduate member of a modern university can 
reside in a university's hostel, instead of living at home, at an increased 
cost of less than ;^50 a year. If then every undergraduate member of, 
say, the University of Manchester were compelled to reside in a hostel 

* It may well be that the increased hostel accommodation required can best 
be provided in the immediate neighbourhood of the university buildings where 
these have already been removed from a central site, as has happened in Birming- 
ham. 



438 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 24. 2 

throughout his undergraduate hfe, and if all the increased cost were 
borne by public funds, the charge upon them would be far less than 
the present expenditure of the University, including both Owens 
College and the CoUege of Technology. And if the number of under- 
graduates were increased to 6,ooo* men and 3,000 women, making 
a total of 9,000 f undergraduates, and if every undergraduate were 
required to reside in a hostel for one year, the cost J of this requirement, 
reckoned as before at ^^50 per student per annum, would still be less 
than the present expenditure of Owens College and the College of 
Technology combined. When we reflect that the total annual income 
of all the universities and university colleges of the British Isles was, 
in 1914, about ;f2,ooo,ooo, and that the Universities of Oxford and 
Cambridge account for about one-half of this amount (so that the total 
annual income of the comparatively non-residential universities and 
university colleges is about £1,000,000) while that of the universities 
and colleges of the United States is £20,ooo,ooo§, we realise that it 
is by no means out of the question to propose to spend an additional 
;£i,ooo,ooo per annum in order to ensure that every English under- 
graduate shall spend at least one year in residence at a university or 
college. 

We may here note that, while private benefactions to universities 
and colleges in the United States amount to more than ;;^5, 000,000 
annually, in the United Kingdom they do not average one-twentieth 
that sum||. In fact the wealthy people of England have not, during 
the last century, endowed education as the richer citizens of the 
United States are now doing, or as was done by the rich ecclesiastics 
and nobles of the Middle Ages. When sums of money are given, they 
are frequently ear-marked for particular buildings and equipment; 
but, necessary as these undoubtedly are, they are not needed so much 
as the provision and proper payment of a personnel adequate for 
research, for teaching, and for the leading of public opinion. While it 
is probable that larger gifts will be forthcoming in the near future, 
it is doubtful whether the increase that may be expected will be 

* This is the number of undergraduates to be expected under the system 
represented in our diagram from the population of the Manchester province, 
estimated at 5,000,000 persons. (Cf. pp. 370, 371 above.) 

t That is 18 per 10,000 of the province referred to in the preceding footnote, 
a figure approximately equal to the percentage in Scotland immediately before 
the War: see above, p. 371. 

I ;^i5o,ooo a year. 

§ These figures are taken from p. 10 of the Report of the Education Com- 
mittee of the British Science Guild upon the Position of Universities and Technical 
Institutions. 

II See p. 2 of the British Science Guild Report, 



III. 24. 2 TYPES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 439 

equal to the greatly increased needs of the universities of this country. 
When the provision of university education in England has become 
equal to that represented in our diagram, it is probable that most 
Enghsh universities will have to depend for the principal part of 
their revenue on public funds that must be made available on an 
altogether new and greatly enlarged scale. 

This increase of national and local grants to universities will 
doubtless be accompanied by some increase in the part played by the 
nation and the locality in university government. We would suggest 
that this change can best be brought about by associating the pro- 
vincial universities of England more closely with the districts which 
they specially serve. The establishment of provincial education 
authorities* (preferably as federations of existing local education 
authorities for higher education, but including representatives of the 
provincial university or universities and of some other autonomous 
educational institutions) would not only be the best means of ensuring 
adequate local support for the universities f, but would also, as we 
have said J, secure (and for the first time) an adequate provision 
throughout the length and breadth of England of all forms of higher 
education §, and especially of the higher secondary education that 

* See above, p. 366, and Appendix E. 

t Compare the following extract from a memorandum by the British Science 
Guild dated April, 19 19: 'In dealing with all education of university grade or 
of the type provided by higher technical institutions, it is necessary to establish 
local authorities for much larger areas than the majority of counties and of county 
boroughs. It is true that in some cases a county borough (i.e. Manchester) has 
provided and largely maintained a technical institute of first rank, but the institute 
is always attended by pupils from the districts of other authorities, who contribute 
either nothing or an inadequate share towards the cost of maintenance, and the 
financial injustice involved threatens the security of these institutions, while in 
the matter of the award of scholarships by the existing local education authorities 
we are very far from securing equal opportunity for residents in different areas.' 

I See above, p. 366. 

§ Compare the following extract from a paper published by Mr Cloudesley 
Brereton entitled 'A Bird's-Eye View of Educational Reform': 'One does not 
believe however that the present-day University or the present-day institution 
of higher learning will ever be able to realise its true local function, leaving out 
those of national or imperial importance, until we have boldly adopted larger 
educational areas, thus bringing together town and country in a new and fruitful 
union; while one is equally confident that unless these areas are also adopted for 
other poUtical purposes, such as the solution of proper means of water supply, 
of communication, and other problems of local administration that at present 
cry for solution [cf . footnote * on p. 366 above], the requisite genius loci, or spirit 
of regionalism, will not be developed and we shall be still far from the ideal of 
the local University being not only the spiritual head of the hierarchy of the 
schools, elementary, secondary, technical, agricultural and the like, but also the 
main organ for reintegrating communal feeling and humanising commercial life 
and giving the proper inspiration to every art and craft in the locality. Rightly 
understood the local University should be a focus of local patriotism and local 
enlightenment.' (The Nineteenth Century and After, June, 1917, p. 1311.) 



440 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 24. 2 

best prepares for university studies*. It is true that a good deal 
has already been accomplished by voluntary cooperation between 
existing local education authorities and universities. But, with 
the increase in the volume and scope of the work of modern 
English universities, voluntary cooperation between small authorities 
can no longer be relied upon for the local support of one of these 
universities, whether by supplying its students with the necessary 
preliminary education, or by supplying its coffers with the necessary 
funds. Indeed, a system which can be upset by the refusal of a single 
authority to play its part, will not suffice to bring university education 
within the reach of every young person of sufficient educational 
promise. To this question we shall return in the next chapter. 

§ 3. Senior Technical Schools, or Polytechnics. 

Senior technical education, on the need for which we have already f 
insisted, must, as we also observed J, be clearly distinguished from the 
work for an honours degree that ought to form the staple studies of 
most undergraduates in every university. To the reasons, economic 
as well as educational, then given for this observation, we have now 
to add that the influences which a university ought to exercise upon 
its undergraduates along the lines indicated in this chapter, would 
be seriously impaired were the university to include, in addition to 
the number of undergraduates indicated by our diagram, the 
larger number of boys between sixteen and eighteen years of age 
represented as following senior technical courses of study; for the 
number of undergraduates between the modal ages of eighteen and 
twenty-one is, according to our diagram, only three-quarters of the 
number of sixteen to eighteen-year old boys from the same province 
who should be receiving senior technical education in the Technical 
Schools of the province, and only three-fifths of the whole number of 
boys under the modal age of eighteen who should be receiving senior 
technical education. Thus, for example, our diagram shews that in 
a province of 5,000,000 people there would be 6,000 men under- 

* The change here anticipated would involve some change in the present system 
of government of most English provincial universities. It may be suggested that 
the Courts of these universities should, in future, represent : 

(a) the teaching body; 

(b) the graduates; 

(c) the provincial education authority; 

(d) persons co-opted on account of their special interest in, and knowledge of, 

university problems. 
Such a change in the constitution of a University Court might in some cases involve 
little if any alteration in the personnel of the executive or, as it is often called, the 
University Council. f See above, p. 413. J See above, p. 410. 



III. 24. 3 TYPES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 441 

graduates over the modal age of eighteen, and 10,000 boys between 
sixteen and eighteen receiving senior technical education, 8,000 of 
them in the Senior Technical Schools or Polytechnics. It is clear that 
the undergraduate life of the university of such a province would be 
swamped by the inclusion of these large numbers of younger students 
receiving education of a different type. We hold, therefore, that, as 
indicated by our diagram, senior technical education, except in so far 
as it is provided for a comparatively small minority in Higher 
Secondary Schools, should be recognised as belonging, not to 
universities and colleges of university rank, but to institutions of 
a different kind* that we describe as Senior Technical Schools f. 
While one, or at most two, universities may well suffice for each of 
the ten or twelve English provinces]:, there is no reason why the 
number of Senior Technical Schools should not be very much greater. 
One, at least, should be available in every county borough or other 
large town that owes its size to its own industry or commerce§. 

When the position that senior technical courses of study ought 
to occupy in a national system of education has been generally 
recognised, and when such courses are provided on the scale indicated 
by our diagram, it may be possible to restrict the use of Senior 
Technical School buildings to those whole-time students who are 
receiving this type of education, and so to foster those educational 
influences that we are specially considering in this chapter. But in the 
meanwhile — and for many years to come — the present practice of using 
for the benefit of part-time students the special qualifications of the 
members of the teaching body of a Senior Technical School, and the 
costly equipment of the workshops and laboratories that are needed 

* We are here in agreement with Mr Michael Longridge who, in the course of 
his presidential address to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said: 

'I think, also, that a clear distinction should be made between technical 
colleges of university rank on the one hand and senior technical schools, whose 
entrance standard is lower than university matriculation, on the other. The 
interests of engineers require two classes of institutions giving technical instruction, 
each with its definite purpose: 
(i) Technical "colleges"; 
(2) Technical "schools" (senior and junior). 

'The technical "colleges" should be of university rank, and should be depart- 
ments or faculties of universities, like the [College] of Technology in Manchester, 
not independent of them, as in Germany.' (Engineering, p. 412, 27th April, 1917.) 

f In Tondon these institutions are generally known as Polytechnics, while the 
regulations of the Board of Education describe them as Local Colleges. 

X See above, pp. 366, 367, and Appendix E. 

§ We are not saying even that every county borough ought to have its own 
Senior Technical School providing organised two-year courses of study for boys 
between sixteen and eighteen years of age. Canterbury, for example, is a county 
borough because of its cathedral, rather than because of its industrial or commercial 
importance. 



442 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 24. 3 

for many of its whole- time courses, will be continued; so that, as our 
diagram shews, Senior Technical Schools will provide, not only whole- 
time two-year courses for young men between sixteen and eighteen 
years of age*, but also intermediate and advanced part-time courses, 
together with miscellaneous part-time classes, including advanced 
trade classes. Most of the part-time classes intended for persons over 
the age of eighteen will meet in the evening ; but, even in the evening, 
the day students' common-room should be reserved for their sole use, 
so that these day students may feel that their Senior Technical School 
is, after all, their own institution, rather than a heterogeneous aggre- 
gate in which their share is quite small. 

It remains to add that, according to the figures given in our 
diagram, and supposing that all the intermediate part-time classes 
meet in the day-time f (on not more than two half-days a week), the 
students present on any one day will be equally divided between 
whole-time and part-time students; while the whole number present 
on any one day will be approximately equal to the whole number 
present on any one evening if we further suppose that all the students 
over eighteen are evening students, and that, on the average, each of 
them attends the Senior Technical School on two evenings in each week 
during the winter session J. The approximation to equality will be 
still closer if we suppose that, of the students over eighteen, those 
following advanced part-time courses attend on the equivalent of one 
day a week instead of in the evening. 

* Compare the findings of the Consultative Committee of the Board of Educa- 
tion recorded in their ' Interim Report on Scholarships for Higher Education ' : 
'We conceive that the chief function of Senior Technical Schools — besides pro- 
viding evening instruction — should be to provide continuous technical and 
scientific instruction from about the age of sixteen to that of eighteen or 
nineteen. They would thus link up naturally — where they exist and they are 
not so numerous as they should be — with those pupils of Secondary Schools who 
conclude their Secondary studies at about the age of sixteen.' (Report [Cd. 8291], 
p. 20.) t Cf. p. 421 above. 

I Our diagram shews that, so far as boys and men are concerned, the Senior 
Technical Schools of a province of 5,000,000 people will be attended on any one 
day by 8,000 whole-time students receiving senior technical education, and by 
8,200 (being one-fifth of the 41,000) part-time students following intermediate 
part-time courses; and on any one evening, if we suppose that every part-time 
student over eighteen attends on the average on two evenings a week, by 21,000 
(being two-fifths of the whole number of 52,500 represented in the diagram). 
Thus the number present in the evening will not be very different from the number 
present in the day-time. 

If the advanced part-time classes in the Senior Technical Schools meet in the 
day-time on the equivalent of one day per week and the other hypotheses in the 
text remain unaltered, the number of students present in the Senior Technical 
School on any one day will be 18,000 while the number present on any one evening 
will be 17,500. This would be a most economical arrangement so far as buildings 
and equipment are concerned. 



III. 24. 4 TYPES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 443 

§ 4. Secondary Schools. 

Having thus distinguished between universities on the one hand, 
and Senior Technical Schools on the other, we have next to observe 
the differences between Higher Secondary Schools and those other 
Secondary Schools that are described in the diagram as ordinary or 
lower. The distinction we draw between these two types of Secondary 
Schools is clearly shewn in the diagram: it is that, while Higher 
Secondary Schools retain almost all their pupils until the age of eighteen 
(or, if all the pupils of Higher Secondary Schools were able enough and 
well enough educated to pass the First School Examination at the 
normal age of sixteen*, for two years work above the standard 
marked by the School Certificate f), ordinary or Lower Secondary 
Schools part company with their pupils at the modal age of sixteen. In 
other words, it is the Higher Secondary Schools alone that undertake 
sixth-form work; or, in the terminology of our diagram, it is only the 
Higher Secondary Schools that provide advanced secondary (together 
with a comparatively small amount of senior technical) education. 

Many educators, it is true, believe that it is a mistake to collect 
all the advanced secondary education of a province into a com- 
paratively small number of Higher Secondary Schools. They would 
prefer that every Secondary School should have its own sixth-form, 
however small; a little leaven, they say, of pupils who intend to pro- 
ceed to a university, after reaching scholarship standard or the 
standard of the Higher School Certificate |, will leaven the whole lump. 
But, when we look at the figures presented by our diagram, we cannot 
share this view, except in so far as it applies to a rural district in 
which Higher Secondary Schools cannot be made available. A certain 
proportion of the qualified boys and girls will always prefer to attend 
Higher Secondary Schools, where very few pupils leave before the age 
of eighteen. If, then, we were to assume that half § the number of 

* This is very far from being the case in many of the ' public schools ' to-day. 
But many of the boys admitted to these schools would not be there if a com- 
petitive test were applied to all English children for the purpose of selecting the 
number shewn in our diagram to be educated in Higher Secondary Schools, and 
if all the less able boys and girls were excluded from these schools. 

t See footnote § on p. 386 above. J See above, p. 387, and Appendix F. 

§ A large proportion of the boys who intend to proceed to a university will 
in any case desire to receive their advanced secondary education in Higher 
Secondary Schools where it has long been the practice for most boys to remain 
at least until the age of eighteen. Thus the Consultative Committee of the Board 
of Education in their ' Interim Report on Scholarships for Higher Education ' 
[Cd. 8291] write : ' The Public Schools have a great tradition ; a tradition of character, 
a tradition of manners, a tradition of physical excellence, a tradition of self- 
government. They do in fact supply the boys of the country with more than half 
the Higher Secondary Education that they receive' {loc. cit. pp. 18, 19). 



444 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 24. 4 

young people, shewn in our diagram as attending Higher Secondary 
Schools between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, were transferred 
instead to Lower Secondary Schools and evenly distributed between 
them, so that every Secondary School should have its own sixth-form, 
however small, the result would be that every Secondary School that 
contained 300 pupils between the ages of ten and sixteen would have 
a sixth-iorm of only twelve pupils who had passed the School Certificate 
standard, and were either preparing to enter the various honours 
schools of a universit}^ or were receiving senior technical education. 
Of these twelve, no more than two or three would ordinarily be 
following the same variety of advanced secondary, or senior technical, 
course. The cost of making appropriate provision for each of these 
sixth-form boys and girls would be altogether prohibitive. The 
formal education of these boys and girls — -the ablest, be it remembered, 
in the whole school — would therefore be sacrificed, in order that the 
school as a whole might be able to look to a sixth-form for its monitors 
or prefects, and perhaps for the leaders of its athletics. 

The injury that would thus be done to nearly half the ablest 
boys and girls — not merely the ablest in the school, but in the whole 
land — during the two most valuable years of their school life, would 
not, however, be limited to defective education in the classroom or 
the study. Those other educational influences that we discussed in 
the first section of this chapter, and that should be so powerful at 
the top of a Higher Secondary School (where, during the last years 
of their school life, able boys and girls are surrounded by school- 
fellows of the same age and similar attainments), would be replaced, 
in the ordinary or Lower Secondary School (where the sixth-form 
would be less than 4 per cent, of the whole school), by temptations to 
behave like demi-gods or eastern potentates lording it over a mass of 
inferior beings. 

In the interest, then, of the ablest of the children — and also, be 
it added, of the training in self-government which boys and girls who 
are about to leave an ordinary Secondary School at the age of sixteen 
will have more opportunity for practising if they are not governed 
from above by a very small sixth-form aristocracy — it is desirable 
that as far as possible Higher Secondary Schools should be distinguished 
from other institutions that provide the greater part of secondary 
education*. 

* Professor John Adams writes: 'My experience backs up your argument. 
In the Scottish schools a good deal of harm was done in the post parish-school 
period by teachers trying to carry on a "top" of a few boys of ability.' 



III. 24. 4 TYPES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 445 

Moreover, we should deprecate any arrangement for transferring 
more than a very small number of pupils from Lower to Higher 
Secondary Schools at or about the age of sixteen. If the Higher 
Secondary School is to exercise its fullest influence upon its pupils, it 
ought to have them for at least four years. Accordingly, the transfer 
of the ablest children from Lower Secondary Schools, into which 
some children pass below the age of twelve and into which a large 
additional number is transferred from Elementary Schools at that 
age, should take place, as indicated in our diagram, not later than 
the age of fourteen. Those pupils of the Lower Secondary Schools who, 
on account of late development or other exceptional circumstances, 
fail to secure transfer at this age, but are afterwards qualified to receive 
university education (if necessary at the State's expense), should, as 
we said, for the most part be admitted to universities for a pre- 
liminary year's work* in preparation for an honours school, after 
matriculating direct from their Lower Secondary Schools, and without 
proceeding to a Higher Secondary School for two years of advanced 
secondary education. Only a very few exceptional persons should be 
transferred from Lower to Higher Secondary Schools on the com- 
pletion of their intermediate secondary education. 

§ 5- Junior Technical Schools. 

In our diagram we have represented Junior Technical Schools as 
providing the same type of education — namely, junior secondary — 
for all their pupils between twelve and fourteen years of age as is 
provided in all Secondary Schools for pupils of the same age. And 
we have represented Junior Technical Schools as providing, for all 
their pupils between fourteen and sixteen years of age, education of 
the same type — namely, senior secondary — as should be provided by 
Lower Secondary Schools for the majority of their pupils of the same 
age. Our discussion f of the nature of senior secondary education 
shewed no essential difference in type of the senior secondary 
education that should occupy the last two years of the whole-time 
education of boys who are passing directly into employment at the 
age of sixteen, whether that education is provided in a Junior 
Technical School on the one hand, or in an ordinary Secondary School 
on the other. Moreover, we have pointed out that, in the view of 
Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee, as in that presented by our diagram, 

* See above, p. 392. 

f See above, Chapter 23, § 10. 

G. E. 29 



446 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 24. 5 

the work of Junior Technical Schools ought to be regarded as belonging 
to secondary education*. 

Is there, then, any adequate reason for perpetuating the present 
distinction between Junior Technical Schools and ordinary or Lower 
Secondary Schools? Or is it not preferable that the function now 
fulfilled by Junior Technical Schools should, in future, belong to 
ordinary Secondary Schools, to which should be added new ' sides ' 
concerned with those varieties of senior secondary education that have 
hitherto been provided in the Junior Technical Schools? Our answer 
is that in the future — and perhaps, although our diagram does not 
indicate it, within the decade with which it is especially concerned — 
the work that is now done in separate Junior Technical Schools 
should be undertaken by new 'sides' of Lower Secondary Schools. 
For, just as we have seen that the influences discussed at the be- 
ginning of this chapter will be more effective at the university stage 
when the highest teaching and research in applied science and 
technology form part of the activities of the universities than when 
they are confined, as in Germany t, to separate institutions, so will 
the same influences be better fostered, at any early stage of education, 
by bringing together in the same schools the work that has hitherto 
been undertaken in separate buildings by Junior Technical Schools 
on the one hand, and by ordinary Secondary Schools on the other. 
It will, however, be observed, from the description we have already J 
given of the character of senior secondary education, that, if regard 
be had rather to the type of education provided than to the particular 
subjects taught, the change we are here suggesting consists, not so 
much of turning Junior Technical Schools into modern Secondary 
Schools of the usual type, as of making ordinary Secondary Schools 
adopt, for the majority of their pupils, the ideals and practice of the 
best Junior Technical Schools. 

Although we are thus recommending the ultimate fusion of Junior 
Technical and ordinary Secondary Schools, we must point out that 
the beginnings and early development of the former have taken place 
outside organised secondary education, and also outside the Element- 
ary School system. In fact, the growth of Junior Technical Schools to- 
wards an established position in English education has not only been 
primarily due to a definite purpose, clearly realised and enthusiastically 
pursued by their teachers, their headmasters, and their inspectors §, 

* See above, p. 417. f See above, p. 435, footnote §. J In Chapter 23, § 10. 
§ Of the technical branch of the Board of Education. Compare Sir Joseph 
Thomson's Committee's Report, p. 43. 



III. 24. 5 TYPES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 447 

but has been fostered and facilitated by the extra measure of freedom 
to expand and to experiment that was allowed to them by the single 
paragraph * of departmental regulations under which they worked : a 
freedom that would have been denied to them under the more specific 
and complicated regulations for Public Elementary Schools f or state- 
aided Secondary Schools J, 

Moreover, it was not until the theory of the terminal, as dis- 
tinguished from the transitional, course had first been thought out 
in its application to this stage of education, that it began to find 
acceptance among those Secondary School masters and those officers 
of local and central education authorities who still believed that all 
secondary education ought to be transitional in character and suitable 
for children who intended, not only to complete secondary courses, 
but to pass on from them to university work. Accordingly, the new 
terminal type of education, especially designed to meet the needs of 
boys who were about to enter industrial occupations, was not pro- 
vided by Secondary Schools but by new Junior Technical Schools 
for which accommodation was generally found in the buildings of 
Senior Technical Schools. These buildings were, for the most part, 
nearly empty in the day-time because the need for senior technical 
education had not been realised, and because the practice of providing 
intermediate part-time courses in the day-time, instead of in the 
evening, was still in its infancy. 

But the original separation of Junior Technical Schools from 
Secondary Schools was due to inability, as well as to unwillingness, on 
the part of the pioneers of the Junior Technical School movement to 
make their schools comply with the regulations for Secondary Schools 
as they then existed. For, in the absence of the encouragement, 
afforded by the Education Act of 1918, to boys and girls to continue 
to receive whole-time secondary education until the age of sixteen, 
the promoters of Junior Technical Schools, in 1906-7 when the 
number of these schools first began to expand rapidly, did not think 

* Section 42 of the Board of Education's Regulations for Technical Schools. 

f For example the Public Elementary School Code laid down definite regula- 
tions concerning the qualifications of teachers, while the early promoters of Junior 
Technical Schools attached more importance to the kind of qualifications described 
on p. 420 above than to the qualifications required by the Code. 

{ For example, the promoters of Junior Technical Schools, when the number 
of these schools first began to expand rapidly about the year 1906, were unwilling 
to insist that every Junior Technical School boy should study a foreign language, 
however little chance there might be of his acquiring a useful knowledge of it; 
for, in those days, the boys generally passed from Junior Technical Schools into 
industry at fifteen years of age, and seldom spent more than two or three years 
altogether in Junior Technical Schools. 

29 — 2 



448 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 24. 5 

it practicable to retain pupils in a Junior Technical School much 
beyond the age of fifteen, or to admit them to these schools before 
the age of thirteen or, at the earliest, twelve. In these circumstances 
Junior Technical Schools could not supply the four-year courses 
required of every Secondary School in receipt of government grant. 

§ 6. Part-time Secondary Schools. 

Of the high importance of part-time secondary education, both 
junior and senior, we have already* spoken. We return to the question 
in this chapter in order to point out how necessary it is that, in the 
development of part-time secondary education, the influences with 
which this chapter is especially concerned shall not be neglected. For 
the age range of part-time secondary education — from fourteen to 
eighteen — is the same as that of the so-called 'public schools': the 
age range of higher secondary education. These part-time day schools 
must be the 'public schools' of the great majority of our fellow- 
countrymen. They must form the young people's characters, as well 
as develop their intellects. No part of English education has, on the 
whole, been more successful than our 'public school' system. What- 
ever good we may get that is new, we must not lose the good that is old. 
We must therefore endeavour to introduce into the part-time secondary 
education of the many what have hitherto been the best features of 
the whole-time secondary education of the very few. In fact, the 
Part-time Secondary School of the near future must be possessed of 
school societies and be governed, as far as possible, by the boys and 
girls themselves. Its buildings should be open for recreative purposes 
at times when classes are not being held. It should have its own teams 
for football, cricket, and other sports, and it should have its Sunday 
service, and perhaps its summer camp. 

The fostering of public spirit in a part-time school attended by 
different pupils on different days is a difficult, but not an insoluble, 
problem. The difficulty will not be so much felt in those new Part- 
time Secondary Schools that are being provided by large industrial 
or commercial concerns for their own employees j. It is not indeed 

* See above, Chapter 23, § 13. 

* Not all of the new continuation schools that will be needed to comply with 
section 10 of the Education Act of 191 8 — a section that requires that every young 
person (between fourteen and sixteen years of age at first, and, seven years later, 
up to eighteen years) shall attend school for at least 320 (or, if the local education 
authorities so resolve, for 280) hours every year — will be provided by local educa- 
tion authorities. Section 10 (3) (ii) of the Act provides that a young person who 
is under obligation to receive part-time education may receive it outside the 
local authority's continuation schools; and section 10 (8) requires that young 



III. 24. 6 TYPES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 449 

to be understood that more than a small proportion of the provision 
of part-time secondary education required by the Education Act 
of 1918 will be made in such 'works schools.' It is, however, con- 
tended that the best works schools may be the best of all the new 
day continuation schools, because of the very special degree in which 
they are able to exercise the kind of influence here in question. Thus, 
one who had been a teacher in a local education authority's continua- 
tion school and who had recently removed to take charge of a works 
school in the neighbourhood of Manchester, informed the present 
writer how sure he felt that his opportunities of really getting hold 
of his boys and influencing them aright were far greater in the works 
school, where he saw his boys every day, than in the local education 
authoritj'^'s school, where he only saw them on two half-days a week. 
Another works school in the same neighbourhood has already some 
400 members. It is self -governed. It has its own magazine. It is 
divided into houses that correspond to different groups of trades. 
The house matches awaken the greatest enthusiasm. The captain of 
the school, himself a senior trade apprentice — for the school is con- 
cerned with trade apprentices only — fills his high office as effectively 
as any chairman of a board of directors. One of the firm's managers 
keeps in close touch with the senior boys who wield authority in the 
school. He may help them with advice, but he does not interfere. 
His function is that of a wise headmaster. Thus an intimate contact 
between employer and workman is established at the very outset of 
their mutual connexion, and should be greatly to the advantage of 
both in all their subsequent relations with each other. 

It is true that, in two obvious respects, a works school must be 
at a disadvantage compared with schools provided for all comers by 
a local education authority. In the first place, there is the danger 
that compulsory inspection by the central or local education authority 
may not suffice to prevent ill-disposed industrial concerns from mis- 
using works schools on their premises, so as to increase their employees' 
productive efficiency at the expense of their education as citizens. 
In the second place, while the local authoritj^'s schools ought, as far 
as possible, to provide different teaching for boys or girls engaged 
in different groups of educative crafts, they ought also to afford 
opportunities of bringing together, for purposes of recreation and social 

people, while they cannot be compelled b}^ the local authority to attend a con- 
tinuation school 'at or in connection with the place of their employment,' may 
attend such a 'works school' instead of one of the local authority's continuation 
schools, provided that the works school is open to inspection either by the local 
education authority or by the Board of Education. 



450 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 24. 6 

life, young people who may not only (as in the case of the works 
school) be engaged in different crafts, but also be employed by different 
firms and in different branches of industry. But the works school 
will, at its best, more than make up for these disadvantages by the 
unique facilities it affords for corporate life, social organisation, and 
self-government among young people who have far more than their 
part-time school in common. 

The continuous presence in the works of a number of cultivated 
teachers cannot fail to exercise a beneficial effect upon the social life 
of the whole works, and not only of the pupils of the works school. 
For the latter, the benefit will be especially marked. The educative 
value of the four and a half days a week that they spend in the 
practice of their employment will be increased. In some cases, the 
craft teachers of the workshops will also be teachers in the works 
school ; and, in every case where the works school is properly organised 
by an 'Apprentice Master,'* who is intimately connected with the 
management of the works, the contact between those who teach 
apprentices in the school and those who instruct them in the workshops 
will be very close. The harmony of purpose between the school and 
the works that can thus be secured will go far to obviate the danger 
of conflict between the lessons the young person learns in the works 
and those that are taught him by his master in the school. In 
particular, the teachers in the works school are more likely than some 
of their fellows in the schools outside to realise how great a public 
service is performed by productive industry. 

Then again, although it is no more the main business of the works 
school than of any other Part-time Secondary School to select the 
abler apprentices for special promotion and higher training, there can 
be no doubt but that the management of the works, being in closer 
touch with the apprentices' school work if it is done in a works school 
than if it were done in a local authority's school, will be kept better 
informed of the school progress of the young people. 

It has been argued that the education provided in a works school, 
not being under the direction of a local authority, may lack coordina- 
tion with the system of education in force in the locality. This argu- 
ment will have greater weight when effective steps have been taken 
to coordinate the work of the various schools conducted by the several 
separate local authorities in the same educational district. When once 
the system of schools and colleges throughout an educational area 
that is large enough to form a natural unit, with its centre in the 
* See above, pp. 350, 420 and 421. 



III. 24. 6 TYPES OF SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 451 

local university (or — as in the case of Lancashire and Cheshire — 
universities), has been coordinated by a single provincial authority, 
it wiU be time to complain if any works schools then remain outside 
the provincial authority's jurisdiction. At the present time, it is often 
easier for a central college to secure coordination with a works school 
than with the schools conducted by adjoining, and sometimes rival, 
local education authorities. 

In these circumstances, we can hardly insist on works schools 
being placed under the (sometimes quite small) local authorities of 
to-day until these in turn have been combined into (or placed under 
the direction of) authorities for a complete educational area, of which, 
as we said*, there should be about a dozen in England. Meanwhile, 
however, the closer the cooperation f between the works school and 
the existing local authorities — and there may be many of them — 
from whose areas it draws its pupils, and with the authority in whose 
area it is situated, the better for all concerned. 

§ 7. Elementary Schools. 

The practicability of separating ordinary Elementary Schools, for 
children under the age of twelve, from Central Elementary Schools, 
which provide senior elementary education for those children who 
have been left behind when their abler schoolfellows have been 
transferred to junior secondary education elsewhere, has already J 
been discussed. Wherever this separation is practicable, it might well 
be made in the interests of the influences described at the opening of 
this chapter. Indeed, as the proportion of abler children who receive 
secondary education after the age of twelve increases up to or beyond 
the 50 per cent, shewn in our diagram, it will become less and less 
desirable that the ordinary Elementary School, attended alike by 
children of every grade of ability, should be dominated, not by the 
ablest, cleverest, or most virtuous children, and not even by the 
children who will later on be recognised as the most athletic, but by 
those who, although possessed of less than average ability, are 
biggest, and strongest, and most mature, simply because they are 
oldest. And yet the change we are here suggesting, desirable as it is 
and still more desirable as it will become when a great increase takes 

* See above, p. 366, and Appendix E. 

f Examples of such cooperation are furnished by cases in which the works 
school is conducted in a Technical School building used by the authority only 
in the evening and rented from them in the day-time by the factory concerned. 
In another case, the local authority provides the teachers and organises the school, 
while the firm concerned finds the building and all the pupils. 

X See above, p. 423. 



452 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 24. 7 

place in the number of children transferred from elementary to 
secondary education at the age of twelve, is by no means so urgently 
needed as some of the other changes proposed in earlier sections of 
this chapter. 

§ 8. Summary. 

Particularly pressing is the need for more residence and tutorial 
superintendence in modern universities; for a clear distinction in 
thought and practice between Higher Secondary Schools on the one 
hand, and Lower Secondary Schools* on the other; for replacing 
separate Junior Technical Schools by new ' sides ' of ordinary Second- 
ary Schools (and by seeing to it that the education provided by these 
schools for those of their pupils who are between fourteen and sixteen 
years of age, and who intend to enter employment on reaching six- 
teen, shall be of the senior secondary type which has in the past 
been provided by most Junior Technical Schools but by comparatively 
few Secondary Schools) ; and last, but by no means least, for intro- 
ducing into the Part-time Secondary Schools of the future the 
atmosphere of public spirit, loyalty, and self-government that has 
hitherto belonged almost exclusively to whole-time Secondary Schools 
of ancient foundation. ; 

* It is held in some quarters that Higher Secondary Schools alone should be 
recognised as Secondary Schools, while Central Elementary Schools should suffice 
to do for boys and girls above the age of twelve all that we have described as 
done by Lower Secondary Schools. In view of the different traditions of elementary 
and secondary education in this country, such a proposal would almost inevitably 
lead to a lowering of the standard of the work of the whole-time education of the 
large proportion of boys aiid girls who, before long, will stay at school until they 
reach the age of sixteen. In these circumstances, we cannot commend the proposal 
to replace Lower Secondary Schools by Central Elementary Schools, although at 
first sight it appears economical because the Board of Education are satisfied 
although Central Elementary Schools possess smaller playgrounds and inferior 
laboratories than are required of grant-aided Secondary Schools. 



CHAPTER 25 

A NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP SYSTEM 

§ I. Maintenance Allowances. 

The bringing into operation in England of such a system of education 
as is represented in our diagram * requires, not only the provision of 
the various types of education and the several types of school or 
college described in the two preceding chapters, but also the selection 
of a sufficient number of able young people, qualified by natural gifts 
and previous education to make the fullest use of this provision, and 
enabled to do so by scholarships and maintenance allowances. Indeed, 
the systematic selection of children and young people on account of 
their personal qualities alone, and irrespective of their place of 
residence or their financial resources f, to receive, if necessary at the 
public expense, whatever type of education will best fit them to serve 
their fellows and the community as a whole, is of the very essence of 
the system of education designed in our Book III| for the purpose of 
realising the aim of education that we set forth at the end of Book II. 
It is true that the Education Act of 1918 obliges local education 
authorities ' to secure that children and young persons § shall not be 
debarred from receiving the benefits of any form of education by 
which they are capable of profiting through inability to pay fees.'|| But 
this obligation refers only to young people under the age of eighteen ; 
and, what is more, it refers to fees alone. Inability to pay fees is not 
the principal obstacle in the way of able young people of slender means 
who desire, and are otherwise qualified, to receive higher education. 
Until adequate maintenance allowances are added to the remission 
of fees, the father's income will be a more potent factor than his 
child's qualities in determining the education the child is to receive. 
It is therefore, as we said, an essential condition of bringing into 
operation in England the system of education represented in our 
diagram that every scholarship awarded shall be supplemented, 

* Facing p. 319 above. f See above, pp. 320 and 374. 

% The first chapter of this book (Book III, Chapter 20) makes this clear. See 
especially p. 322 above. 

§ The expression 'children and young persons' covers all young people under 
the age of eighteen. 

II Section 4 (4) of the Education Act, 1918. 



454 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 25. i 

wherever necessary, by a maintenance allowance proportioned to the 
scholar's needs. 

The Consultative Committee of the Board of Education in their 
Interim Report on Scholarships for Higher Education put the matter 
thus: 

Roughly speaking, no Local Education Authority should give any aid 
to any candidate to go to the University unless it were prepared if necessary 
to pay the whole of his expenses; and the like is true of the Government 
in the case of Scholarships granted by Government. The main question 
to be decided by the awarding body with regard to each candidate is: Is 
this candidate fit to be assisted by public funds to receive University 
instruction ? If he is not so fit, there is no need to give him any assistance 
at all*. 

The principle thus applied to university scholarships is equally 
applicable in every other department of a national scholarship system. 
If a scholar is fit to be assisted by public funds to receive education 
of whatever type, and in whatever type of educational institution, 
the amount of the assistance given him should be sufficient to enable 
him to derive the fullest advantage, not only from those direct 
educational mfluences discussed in Chapter 23, but also from those 
other influences considered in Chapter 24. 

It may however be objected that, if maintenance allowances were 
added to the remission of fees, the cost of such a scholarship system 
as is represented by the arrows f in our diagram would be prohibitive. 
The cost would indeed be very great, but not, it is submitted, beyond 
the resources of this country. Even the most extravagant estimate J, 
based upon the high prices ruhng in July, 1919, shews that the whole 
cost of the scholarships and maintenance allowances would probably 
be less than the pubhc expenditure on elementary education in 
England and Wales before the War, and less than one-sixteenth of the 
country's annual expenditure on alcoholic drink ! § Moreover, there is 
no investment of public funds that produces so splendid a return in 
the material prosperity, and in the spiritual well-being, of the people, 
as results from expenditure on the right kind of education. 

§ 2. Provincial Authorities. 

The administration of national scholarships, together with such 
maintenance allowances as are required to secure that every kind of 
education is brought within the reach of all children and young people 

* Loc. cit. pp. 58, 59. f See above. Chapter 22, § 7 (pp. 374, 375). 

X Such an estimate is given in Appendix G. § See above, p. 374. 



III. 25. 2 A NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP SYSTEM 455 

of sufficient educational promise, irrespective both of their place of 
residence in England or Wales and of their private financial circum- 
stances, cannot be directly undertaken by the Board of Education; 
nor can such a system be effectively administered by existing local 
education authorities*. It is true that the Education Act of 1902 
entrusted the duty of supplying or aiding the supply of higher 
education to larger local education authorities than some of those f 
which it established for elementary education. But these higher 
education authorities have not proved large enough to envisage their 
responsibility for the highest education of all. The result is that, 
although responsibility for the highest education rests equally upon 
all the higher education authorities, a boy's chance of winning a 
university scholarship depends upon the particular town or county 
in which he happens to live J. Thus, for example, when in 1913-14 
the city of Manchester was giving university scholarships costing 
•23 of a penny rate (and this in addition to other expenditure on 
university education amounting to a rate of 1-38 pence), at least one 
county borough in Lancashire offered no university scholarships, and 
contributed nothing from its rates for university education either in 
Manchester or in Liverpool. And, indeed, a local education authority 
within whose borders there is no provision of some particular type 
of education is apt to neglect its responsibility for education of that 
type: it is likely to refuse to contribute to the cost of this type of 
education, whether provided by some other local authority or by 
an independent governing body; it may also refrain from offering 
scholarships that will enable young people resident in its area to 
obtain education of the type in question. We have seen§, too, that 
it would be out of the question for every existing higher education 
authority in England and Wales to attempt to secure the provision 
in its own area of every type of education represented in our diagram. 
Even the great county areas like that of Lancashire are, from our 
present point of view, as inchoate as a railway system all of whose 
junctions are under the control, if not of an enemy, at least of rival 
companies. Except only London, there is no administrative county 
in England that has a university or university college within its 

* See above. Chapter 22, § 2. 

t Namely, non-county boroughs with a population over 10,000 and urban 
districts with a population over 20,000. 

X See Appendix H for a statement (published in 1916 by the Council for 
Organising British Engineering Industry) of the scholarships tenable in universities 
and institutions of university rank offered by the higher education authorities 
(namely the county councils and county borough councils) in Lancashire and 
Cheshire. § See above, p. 365. 



456 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 25. 2 

area*. Moreover, non-residential Higher Secondary Schools, as well 
as Senior Technical Schools, are, for the most part, located in large 
towns, although a very considerable proportion of their pupils or 
students reside in the surrounding county areas. 

If then we are right in supposing that equal educational opportunity 
will only be afforded to children of equal merit throughout the length 
and breadth of England when the administration of scholarships and 
maintenance allowances is entrusted to authorities large enough to 
envisage a complete system of education from the Elementary or 
Preparatory School to the University, it follows that new provincial 
education authorities f are needed, each concerned with one of the 
ten or twelve provinces into which we have already J suggested that 
England and Wales should be subdivided for educational purposes. 

While the first business of these provincial education authorities 
should be gradually to bring into existence a national scholarship 
system that will fulfil the conditions we have laid down§, they should, 
to an increasing extent, exercise a coordinating influence upon the 
activities of the various local education authorities and independent 
educational institutions in their respective provinces. For, in order 
to secure a smooth and continuous flow from the beginning to the 
end of our flow diagram, the amount of the flow at any point, and 
the educational channel that is to receive it, must be adapted to 
each other's dimensions. In other words, the provision of the various 
types of education in the various types of school or college represented 
in our diagram, and the number of young people selected and enabled 
by scholarships and maintenance allowances to follow each course of 
study in each educational institution, require mutual adjustment. 
Accordingly, the authority that administers the scholarships and 
maintenance allowances, and so aims at supplying the demand of 
the community — not only for the several classes (A, B, C, and D) of 
ser\'ice represented in our diagram, but also for the many varieties of 
each class of service — by creating a sufficient flow of pupils into each 

* If Cambridge and Durham are exceptions, they are exceptions of the kind 
that prove the rule. 

t We have not followed the Education Reform Council (see Education Reform, 
being the report of the Education Reform Council published for the Teachers' 
Guild by P. S. King and Son, 1917) in describing these authorities as 'Provincial 
Councils.' For reasons explained in an article that appeared in Nature on 3rd 
April, 1919 (see above, footnote *, p. 366), we believe that Provincial Councils are 
needed for many purposes of local government in addition to education, and 
that, when such Councils come into being, each provincial education authority 
may be a department of one of them. 

i See p. 366 above, and Appendix E on p. 497. 

§ See above, p. 374. 



in. 25. 2 A NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP SYSTEM 457 

educational channel, ought also to be in some measure responsible for 
the channels into which they direct the flow*. 

We would therefore gradually extend the functions of provincial 
education authorities, until each provincial authority becomes 
responsible, through the Board of Education, to Parliament for 
ensuring the provision, in its own province, of a S3'stem of education 
that will fulfil the conditions described in our preceding chapters, 
and that will make the scholarships and maintenance allowances 
(being considered in the present chapter) equally available for all 
young people of sufficient educational promise. This proposed ex- 
tension of the powers and duties of provincial education authorities, 
established in the first instance for the administration of a national f 
scholarship system, does not mean the abolition of existing local 
education authorities; and still less does it imply the aboUtion of 
university autonomy. But it does mean that, in each province, there 
shall be one authority representative of the universities and of the 
existing local education authorities J, coordinating their work, and 

* Compare, for example, the Education Reform Council's discussion of the 
training of teachers (loc. cit. pp. 21, 22). Compare also the following extract from 
a memorandum by the British Science Guild dated April, 1919: 'Proper provision 
for the training of teachers also involves a task too great for the majority of the 
present authorities. These difficulties would be surmounted if for the purpose of 
Higher Education the country were divided into about ten Provinces roughly 
corresponding to the areas of the Universities, and Provincial Authorities were 
created out of the existing Local Authorities with the addition of University and 
Technical members.' And it is not only the training of teachers, but the training 
of all future members of Classes A and B that is beyond the power of the small 
higher education authorities of the present day. For, as we have seen, universities 
and Senior Technical Schools have an essential function to perform in the training 
of future members of these respective classes, and most higher education authorities 
are unrepresented on the governing bodies of universities, while many such 
authorities are even without a Senior Technical School. 

t In order that the scholarship system administered by ten or twelve provincial 
education authorities may be a national system, each provincial authority should, 
whenever necessary, allow its scholars to hold their scholarships in schools or 
colleges located in a different province. Moreover, the scholarships awarded by 
a provincial education authority should not cease to be tenable with the removal 
of the scholar or his parents to another province. 

X And possibly also of the teaching profession in the province; and pos- 
sibly of organised industry. Thus the recently established Federal Council of 
Lancashire and Cheshire Teachers' Associations, representative of the teaching 
profession in the two counties, might be given the duty of nominating the re- 
presentative or representatives of the teaching profession on the provincial 
education authority for the North-western Province. Similarly Whitley, district 
councils for leading industries, or rather federations of all such councils within 
the province, might nominate representatives to serve on the provincial education 
authority. 

The Federal Council of Lancashire and Cheshire Teachers' Associations, after 
a series of committee meetings held during the spring and summer of 1919, under 
the present writer's chairmanship, passed a number of Recommendations concern- 
ing ' A National System of Education ' having much in common with the proposals 



458 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 25. 2 

ensuring the adequacy of scholarships and maintenance allowances 
(as well as of the provision of each kind of educational institution and 
of each type and variety of education) for every inhabitant of the 
province, wherever he happens to Uve and however poor his 
family may be, provided only that his own educational promise is 
sufficient. 

The executive power of these provincial authorities should only 
grow gradually. But from the first they should advise the existing 
education authorities, including the governing body of the local 
university. It should also be their duty to advise the Board of 
Education upon the education schemes submitted by the several 
authorities in accordance with Section 4 of the Education Act of 1918; 
and in doing so they should have special regard to the inter-relations 
of these several partial schemes that together constitute the plan 
for the province as a whole. The executive power of the provincial 
authorities should however be increased, as their experience fits them 
for it, by the transfer of power to the provincial authority, both from 
the Board of Education and from the local education authorities. 
If experience justifies, that development might proceed until the 
existing education authorities, whether for elementary or higher 
education,- become, in efiect, local committees of the provincial author- 
ity, and until the Board of Education, while continuing to exercise 
some measure of control (by means of the government grants which 
it will then disburse through the provincial authorities), becomes 
chiefly concerned with the coordination of the work of the several 
provincial authorities, with the private provision of education in 
England, and with national systems of education abroad. To this 
end, the Board's department of Special Inquiries and Reports will 
need to be very greatly expanded and strengthened, until its work is 
recognised as second in importance to none of the other functions of 
the Board. 

We have said * that the growth of the demand — determined, as it 
must largely be, by the provision of scholarships and maintenance 
allowances — for various types of education, and the increase of the 
supply of education to meet this demand, should be adjusted to one 
another. But the need for this adjustment is not to be made an excuse 
for unduly postponing the creation of a national scholarship system 

contained in the present book. These Recommendations, with a Prefatory Note 
and an Introduction by the present writer summarising Chapters 22 to 25 of this 
book, and with a copy of his diagram (facing p. 319 above), have now (March, 1920) 
been pubUshed by the Manchester University Press. 
* See above, pp. 456, 457, 



III. 25. 2 A NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP SYSTEM 459 

on the one hand, or, on the other, for delaying the necessary increase 
of the pubhc provision of all kinds of education. On the contrary, 
each reform needs to proceed apace, and so to stimulate the other to 
keep up with it. And, if for a time one is to get ahead of the other, the 
lead should be taken by the national scholarship system. For nothing 
will so vividly bring home to local education authorities, and to 
governing bodies, the need for increased teaching strength, or for new 
buildings and equipment, as their inability to cope with the demand 
of qualified pupils for admission to their respective schools and 
colleges. 

§3. Multiplicity of Scholarships. 

Turning now to some other aspects of the national scholarship 
system, represented by the arrows in our diagram, and briefly 
described above, we first remind ourselves that these arrows mark 
selection for transfer to a higher type of educational institution, 
together with such money payments, or such increased money pay- 
ments, as are necessary to enable the selected candidates to enter the 
higher school or college*. The ages at which the various selective 
tests should be applied and the scholarships awarded have also been 
considered in an earlier chapter f. It remains for attention to be here 
directed to the multiplicity of single- and double-headed arrows, 
corresponding to the many educational paths by which it should be 

* \Miere selection takes place without differentiation in money payments 
between the selected candidates on the one hand, and those not selected on the 
other, there are no arrows. For example, where some pupils of a Lower Secondary 
School are selected at the age of fourteen to receive intermediate secondary 
education, while those not so selected enter upon senior secondary studies, there 
are no arrows. Again, where an increase of money payment takes place without 
renewed selection there are no arrows. For example, we have suggested in Appendix 
G that at the age of fourteen the money value of maintenance allowances paid 
to necessitous scholars in Lower Secondary Schools be increased from a maximum 
of five shillings a week to a maximum of fifteen shillings a week, but no arrows 
mark this change. 

t See above. Chapter 23. The scholarship selections represented in our diagram 
as taking place at or after the age of sixteen correspond closely with those recom- 
mended by the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education in their 
' Interim Report on Scholarships for Higher Education ' [Cd. 8291]. The Committee 
recommend : 

' ( I ) That, in framing schemes for Scholarships, the following ends be kept 
in view: the training of men and women according to their capacity that they 
may serve the needs of the nation in the manner for which they are best fitted; 
the reward of merit and the encouragement of learning; and the provision of equal 
educational opportunity : the furtherance of industry, agriculture, and commerce, 
being regarded as a principal need of the nation, and Higher Education being 
regarded as a means to this end among others. 

'(2) That, for the furtherance of Higher Scientific and Technological 
Education, Scholarships from Secondary Schools to Universities and the Highest 
Scientific and Technical Colleges be still accepted as the principal means.' [Loc. 
cit. p. 70.) 



46o A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 25. 3 

possible, in any democratic system of education, for the various fields 
of useful service to be reached. In this connexion we emphasise 
again * the importance of such scholarships as are represented by the 
two vertical arrows on the twenty-years ordinate, by means of which 
an able boy, who may have passed directly from an Elementary School 
into employment at the age of fourteen, may later obtain admission 
to undergraduate studies in a university. Such a transition would 
have been impossible in Imperial Germany where the road to 
the university was rigidly defined. But English education must 
remain democratic. The loss to our national life that would result 
from refusing to admit to full university privileges students who 
approach the universities otherwise than through the normal avenue 
of the Higher Secondary School would indeed be deplorable. 

§ 4. Methods of Selection. 

The provincial education authority, charged with the business of 
awarding scholarships and maintenance allowances, will have carefully 
to consider the best means of making the necessary selection at the 
various points marked by arrows in our diagram. Many ways of 
making each selection will have to be tried before the best is discovered. 
The following suggestions are merely intended as a first approximation 
to the methods that may ultimately be employed. 

Pending the results of further investigations into the nature and 
uses of such mental tests as Mr Burtf and other experimental 
psychologists have employed for the purpose of determining general 
ability, an essay and an arithmetic paper should remain the principal 
means of selecting boys and girls of about the age of twelve for 
transfer (with such scholarships or maintenance allowances as are 
required) from Elementary to Secondary or Junior Technical Schools ; 
for Mr Burt, Dr Webb, and others have shewn how high is the correla- 
tion between general ability and success in examinations. Wherever 
the very large numbers | involved in this scholarship test do not 
render oral examination impracticable, it would be desirable to 
combine an interview, such as forms part of the entrance test to 

* See above, p. 395, especially footnote | . 

t See above, pp. 105 et seq. 

J The numbers submitted for the final test might be reduced by adopting a 
suggestion made by the Incorporated Association of Headmasters that a pre- 
liminary selection should first be made in the Elementary Schools. The Association 
recommend that 'Every elementary school should be required to furnish a list 
of boys of not more than eleven years of age who are of more than average ability 
and fitted to pursue a secondary education; and all of these boys should be sub- 
mitted for examination.' 



III. 25. 4 A NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP SYSTEM 461 

Osborne, with the written examination at this stage*. And, when 
such an oral examination cannot be held, the examiners should be 
required to take into account a written report from each candidate's 
headmaster f. In view of the high importance of 'purpose' among 
human qualities! , the selectors of candidates for transfer might also 
do well to have before them short formal statements, from each 
candidate and from his parents, concerning their wishes for his ultimate 
employment ; but formal statements of this kind would be much more 
valuable in the case of selections of young people at and after the 
age of fourteen, since purpose does not begin to play its leading part 
in character until adolescence has set in §. The duty of recommending 
to the provincial education authority, for selection, the names of 
candidates approaching the age of twelve might be left, in view of 
the large numbers involved, to a body of external examiners. The 
same examiners might also recommend the award of supplementary 
scholarships (represented by the ringed single arrow on the fourteen- 
years ordinate) to children approaching the age of fourteen who 
missed being selected at the age of twelve. But, in the case of all the 
other selections represented in our diagram, the teaching body of the 
institution to which each scholarship is intended to lead should play 
the chief part in recommending candidates for that scholarship; and 
they should always have interviewed the candidates they recommend. 
The selectors should, moreover, have before them reports from each 
candidate's headmaster, as well as formal statements of ' purpose ' — 
of the kind just alluded to — from the candidates and their parents, 
unless such statements prove in practice to be unrehable. And it 
should always be open to a Higher Secondary School, a Senior 
Technical School, or a university or college of university rank, to 
choose between selected scholars when the number presenting them- 
selves for admission exceeds the available accommodation. 

If, as has just been suggested, the test for the selection of scholars 
for transfer from Lower to Higher Secondary Schools at the age of 

* It was suggested on p. 127 above that the principal object of such an inter- 
view is to determine the cleverness, c, of the candidate whose general ability, g, 
is approximately determined by his written examination papers. When c as well 
as g is determined in a scholarship test, any attempt to place candidates in order 
of merit should be based upon the sum of the squares of the measures of their 
cleverness and ability, rather than upon the simple sum of the marks obtained 
in the tests of these two independent qualities. In other words, the final mark 
that should determine a candidate's position in the order of merit should be 
proportional to (e = ) sJg^ + c^ and not to g + c. Cf. p. 125 above. 

t The usefulness of the headmasters' reports would be increased by their 
being drawn up in some standard form such as experience may shew to be the 
most suitable. J See above, p. 244, § See above, pp. 340, 341. 

G. E. 30 



462 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 25. 4 

fourteen, should rest in the first instance with the masters of the 
Higher Secondary Schools concerned, care must be taken to prevent 
the scholarship test having too close a relation to particular studies 
pursued in the Higher Secondary School. Even as the arithmetic and 
essay papers set to children approaching the age of twelve do not 
demand special knowledge that any of the candidates are likely to 
lack, so the selective test applied to candidates who are just com- 
pleting their junior secondary education should not unduly favour 
those candidates who have made a special study of such subjects as 
Greek and Latin, that may be carried further by intermediate and 
advanced secondary studies on the classical sides of Higher Secondary 
Schools, but that form no necessary part of the future studies of those 
others who will proceed from junior to senior secondary education. 

On the other hand, when boys or girls who are completing their 
intermediate secondary education are tested with a view to the transfer 
of selected candidates to Senior Technical Schools (by means of the 
scholarships represented in the diagram by the double-headed arrow 
on the sixteen-year ordinate), the test should not be wholly or mainly 
concerned with such general knowledge as is required for the School 
Certificate examination, although to have obtained this Certificate 
may well be a condition precedent to the award of a scholarship. 
Special excellence in the group of subjects which the candidates wish 
to pursue further during their subsequent whole-time education — 
and which should therefore have been studied in the more abstract 
('transitional') way that is most likely to develope general ability 
or 'g'* — should more than compensate for mediocrity in other (com- 
paratively 'terminal') subjects of the School Certificate examination. 
And this special excellence and ability had better be tested by 
means of special papers than by using papers set for the purpose 
of a pass examinationf . In particular, candidates who excel in an 
English essay or in a mathematical problem paper — excellence which 
requires abiUty, and cannot be attained by knowledge alone — should 
be preferred to the possessors of masses of miscellaneous information. 
The same is true of the means employed for selecting the few 
exceptional boys and girls who are to be transferred (by means 
of the scholarships represented by the single-headed arrow on the 
sixteen-years ordinate of our diagram) from Lower Secondary Schools 



* See above, Chapter 21, §8. 

f Compare the finding of Sir Joseph Thomson's Committee that: 'It is not 
desirable to use large pass examinations like the Local Examinations or Matricula- 
tion Examinations for the award of scholarships.' (Loc. cit. p. 61.) 



III. 25. 4 A NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP SYSTEM 463 

to Higher Secondary Schools, or to the preHminary one-year university 
courses whose functions we described above*. 

This principle is still more important in the case of selection for 
university entrance scholarships, whether the selection be made from 
boys or girls who are completing advanced courses in Higher Secondary 
Schools f, or whether it be made from among older students attending 
part-time classes J . In either of these cases, the test of general knowledge, 
which, as we have said§, forms a necessary part of the test of fitness 
to enter a university, should be regarded as altogether subsidiary, if 
indeed it is taken into account at all, in deciding the order of merit 
of competitors for university entrance scholarships. 

Research studentships, whether for students who have just 
graduated at another university (represented by the vertical arrow 
on the twenty-one-years ordinate) or for men and women who have 
already spent some years in whole-time employment (represented by 
the vertical arrow on the twenty-four-years ordinate), should not be 
awarded by examination at all, but after careful consideration of all 
the circumstances of each particular case, and, in the case of young 
graduates, having special regard to the opinions of their abilities 
formed by the professors under whom they have just been working ||. 

* See above, p. 392. The question whether the few exceptional young people 
who hold the scholarships here in question should hold them in the sixth-form 
of a Higher Secondary School or in a preliminary one-year university course 
must depend in part upon local circumstances and in part upon the age of the 
individual scholars at the time of their selection. Experience shews (see above, 
p. 392) that very few students who enter a university before the age of seventeen 
are sufficiently mature to profit by the comparative freedom of study that marks 
university courses, or by those other university influences that were discussed 
in Chapter 24, § 2. It follows that, other things being equal, a scholar selected 
appreciably before the age of seventeen for one of these supplementary (i.e. 
marked by a single-headed arrow) scholarships, had better hold his scholarship for 
two years in a Higher Secondary School, while successful candidates of seventeen 
years of age or upwards had better proceed direct to preliminary studies in a 
university. It should be added that the maximum annual value of the scholarship 
and maintenance allowance will, as pointed out in Appendix G, have to be greater 
if it is held at a university than if it is held at a Higher Secondary School. 

f This selection is represented by the double-headed arrow at the top of the 
eighteen-years ordinate in our diagram (facing p. 319). 

J This selection is represented by the two single-headed arrows on the twenty- 
years ordinate in the diagram. 

§ See above, pp. 394 and 395. 

II Thus the Consultative Committee of the Board of Education recommend 
in their ' Interim Report on Scholarships for Higher Education ' that every holder 
of an undergraduate scholarship who satisfactorily completes his undergraduate 
studies should be allowed, on the recommendation of a professor, to remain up 
at his university for one or two years of advanced study and training in methods 
of research {loc. cit. p. 72). 



30—2 



CHAPTER 26 

TEACHERS 

A PUPIL as he advances in years should, as we have observed*, 
gradually become his own chief educator. Accordingly, the university 
teacher need not be so much one who can teach, as one who knows 
and discovers, and who inspires with a love of knowing and discover- 
ing f. Advanced study, and experience in research, are therefore the 
special qualifications of a university teacher. And, as we saw J, these 
should be combined, in the case of the professor or lecturer in a depart- 
ment of applied science or technology, with continued close personal 
experience of industrial practice : experience of a kind that can only 
be secured bj'' a consulting practice § that brings the professor or 
lecturer into practical touch with works, mills, or factories, and places 
him in a position to command the fullest information concerning the 
processes and methods of the concerns that he advises. 

The junior members of the teaching body of a university should 
possess qualifications similar to those expected of their seniors, although 
they may not have so long or so distinguished a record || as original 
investigators. It is true that in the past many of the lecturers and 
assistant lecturers in modern universities have not recognised that 
the advancement of knowledge is one of their functions. They have 
been content to prepare their students for university examinations, 
and in this work some of them have proved to be exceedingly effective 
teachers; but the number of lectures which they have been expected 
to deliver, added in some cases to an excessive amount of evening 
teaching, has prevented them from undertaking original research, even 
if experience of, and capacity for, research had been among their quali- 
fications when first they joined the university teaching body many years 
ago. It would be impossible now, for the first time, to require original 

* See p. 271 above. f Cf. p. 400 above. 

{ See above, p. 349. § See above, pp. 406, 407. 

II Degrees and diplomas at best afford imperfect evidence of the qualifications 
of a university teacher or of any other member of the teaching profession. But, 
if a university professor may ordinarily be expected to be qualified for the Doctor's 
degree of an English university, according to the conditions under which such 
degrees have hitherto been conferred, the junior member of the teaching body 
of a university should be expected to possess the qualifications that are to be 
demanded from candidates for the Ph.D. degree as newly established in England 
(see above, p. 403). 



III. 26 TEACHERS 465 

work from men who have grown old in the profession of university 
teaching. But the mistake must not be repeated. Care must in future 
be taken that even the most junior member of the teaching body of 
every university recognises that research and teaching are equally 
his duty. To this end, his teaching duties must allow him ample 
leisure for research. 

Sixth-form masters, concerned with advanced secondary education 
in Higher Secondary Schools, should possess the same qualifications 
as junior university teachers. We have already* suggested that the 
sixth-form master should preserve close touch with university work, 
and that he should be engaged in original work on his own account, 
perhaps for this purpose spending part of his time in the precincts of 
a neighbouring university. But the schoolmaster, even more than 
the university teacher, needs to share his pupils' interests!, and, by 
commanding their respect and even their admiration, to add an 
emotional interest to the studies with which he is concerned. For 
this reason, athletic prowess J , to which few English boys are indifferent, 
is a more important attribute of the schoolmaster than of the university 
teacher. 

Members of the teaching body of a Senior Technical School require 
much the same qualifications as sixth-form masters in Higher 
Secondary Schools. But teachers concerned with senior technical 
education, whether in a Senior Technical School or in a Higher 
Secondary School, resemble university teachers of applied science and 
technology in requiring an intimate personal acquaintance with the 
group of employments into which their pupils are about to enter. 

The same is true of teachers responsible for advanced part-time 
classes, whether provided in a university or in a Senior Technical 
School. For teachers of trade classes, on the other hand, practical 
experience of the trade, combined with knowledge of the principles 
underlying the trade practice, is the most important special qualifica- 
tion. 

Schoolmasters who take the middle forms of a Higher Secondary 
School, or who are elsewhere responsible for intermediate secondary 
education, should generally possess an honours degree as evidence of 
a focussed single wide interest. They need not however undertake, or 
have undertaken, original investigations on their own account. On 
the other hand, the athletic and other qualities that will enable them 
to appeal to their pupils' interests and awaken their enthusiasm, are 

* See above, p. 349. f See above, p. 346. 

J Cf. above, p. 433 



466 A SYSTEM OF EDUCATION III. 26 

more important in their case than in the case of sixth-form masters. 
Moreover, some training as a teacher is a desirable, if not a 
necessary, quahfication ; since fourteen year old boys, who are just 
beginning their intermediate secondary education, are often very far 
from anxious to obtain the best education that their schools are able 
to give. They need to be taught.... And intermediate part-time classes 
should be taught by teachers possessing intellectual qualifications 
similar to those required for intermediate secondary education. 

Teachers who are concerned with senior secondary or senior part- 
time education, require much the same qualifications as the form- 
masters responsible for intermediate secondary education, although 
an honours degree is less necessary for them. But, as in the case of 
members of the teaching body of a Senior Technical School, these 
teachei^s ought also to have had direct personal experience of the 
employment into which their pupils are about to enter, or (in the case 
of senior part-time classes) have already entered. It may be suggested 
that teachers of senior part-time classes attended by boys engaged 
in some particular industry, or group of industries*, would do well 
themselves to have entered employment in such an industry at an 
early age — say, after completing senior secondary education at the 
age of sixteen — and, four or five years later, to have been transferred 
by means of scholarships to an appropriate honours course in a 
university. The most suitable course will only be discovered by 
experiment and experience, but it is not improbable that the group 
of subjects that are coming to be known as the science of industrial 
administration might well form the staple of the honours course to be 
pursued by future teachers of industrial students in senior part-time 
courses. The training in teaching, which, as we have indicated, is 
desirable in the case of these teachers, ought immediately to follow 
their graduation. 

In the case of teachers concerned with junior secondary and 
junior part-time education, an ordinary, instead of an honours, degree 
should suffice; but the course for the ordinary degree should be 
planned on the lines indicated above f, so as to form an interest that 
is single and wide. For the rest, the qualifications of these teachers 
are much the same as for those concerned with intermediate secondary 
education, except that professional training is more necessary. 

Senior elementary education requires much the same teaching 
quaUfications as junior secondary, intended for boys and girls of the 
same age. But teachers engaged in senior elementary education ought, 
* Cf. above, p. 426. f See above, p. 402. 



III. 26 TEACHERS 467 

as far as possible, to have had some experience of the employment into 
which most of their children are likely to enter. Moreover, training 
as a teacher should be regarded as indispensable. 

For the success of elementary and preparatory education, training 
as a teacher is of the first importance. A university degree is desirable, 
but by no means essential, for teachers of children under twelve years 
of age. Among the teachers of the younger children in Elementary 
Schools, there are, and always should be, many kindly women whose 
successful teaching is indisputable, but who would never pass the 
final examination for a university degree. 

These brief notes on the qualifications of teachers engaged in 
providing the various types of education represented in our diagram, 
are little more than a summary of observations that have been made 
from time to time in the course of our enquiry. One further observa- 
tion must be repeated and emphasised in conclusion. It is that the 
form-master's neurography tends, as we said*, to be reproduced in 
his pupils. Hence the supreme importance of training, appointing, 
and retaining, teachers of the right kind : teachers whose own education 
has brought them into close and equal fellowship with many sorts of 
men, has taught them to subordinate their personal interests to those 
of the society to which they belong, and has in fact been rich in the 
influences discussed in Chapter 24, as well as adequate from the 
standpoint of examination tests. In short, a perfect system of educa- 
tion requires, above all, perfect teachers ; and perfect men and women, 
whatever their walk in life — be it teaching or any other — require a 
perfect education, an education that achieves its aim and so forms 
Christian characters f . 

* See above, p. 346. f See above, p. 316. 



APPENDIX A* 

The 'Broad Foundation' Metaphor; and some consequences 
of its prevalence at the present time. 

So general is the use of the broad foundation metaphor in one 
form or another that, more than any other simple formula, it repre- 
sents, not indeed the aim of English education as a whole (for as a 
whole, English education is, according to Chapter 3 above, character- 
ised by aimlessness), but the partial aim of a large section of state- 
aided education. Its influence upon secondary education has been 
especially marked. It has, moreover, a semi-ofificial character; for, 
although no unequivocal statement of even the proximate or pro- 
visional aim of our national system of education is contained in any 
official publication, the Consultative Committee of the Board of 
Education make free use of the metaphor of the broad foundation of 
hberal education. 

Thus, in their 'Report on Examinations in Secondary Schools.' 
the Committee record their opinion that 

Every Secondary School should provide, for pupils up to an average 
age of sixteen, a sound basis of liberal education which, though not neces- 
sarily of the same type in all schools, would serve as a foundation upon 
which varieties of further education could be based f. 

In their next report, the Committee repeat 

It must... be held to be one of the functions of the Secondary School... 
to provide those of its pupils whose future callings may involve manual 
work... or the utilisation and control of such work with a foundation on 
which technical instruction may subsequently be built J. 

If this building metaphor be considered merely as a metaphor, it 
is inferior to the plant metaphor of Pestalozzi and Frobel. Indeed 
' in the case of the Plant Metaphor which has had such a wide influence 
in modifying views of education... it may almost be said that we are 
not here dealing with an analogy at all, but with a type. The plant 
does not merely stand for an organism. It is an organism. If it be 
asked why, in that case, it is necessary in order to illustrate the 
development of the child, the answer is that the child as possessing 

* See above, p. 5. t Report (1911), p. 104. 

I Report on Practical Work in Secondary Schools (1913), p. 5. 



470 APPENDICES 

self-consciousness is an organism of a higher grade than the plant, 
is in fact a hyper-organism.... O^^am'sm is a better metaphor by far 
than machine] but it is a metaphor, and an inadequate one in every 
way.'* And the building metaphor is even worse than machine. It 
involves the heresy of the passivity of the educand, ' one of the most 
pestilent heresies in education.' f 

The building metaphor of the 'broad foundation,' on which any 
sort of superstructure may afterwards be built, further disregards 
the need for continuity in the development of an organism like the 
human brain or of a hyper-organism like the human soul. It pre- 
sumes that, up till, say, the age of sixteen, a number of educands, 
destined for all kinds of different walks in life iipon which they may 
have entered a year later, can well be stud5dng exactly the same 
subjects in exactly the same wayj. 

Perhaps, however, the metaphor is not to be taken literally. How 
then does it work out in practice? The Board of Education requires 
that certain 'subjects' shall be taught in all Secondary Schools in 
receipt of government grants. 

The emphasis upon subjects, and especially it would seem upon 
separate subjects, that appears to be the inevitable result in practice 
of aiming in theory at a broad foundation (on which, it is understood, 
any kind of superstructure may afterwards be built), has not lacked 
condemnation by leading educators. 

' Milton ' said Professor Perry from the presidential chair of the 
Education Section of the British Association, ' Milton first taught me 
the true notion of education, that the greatest mistake is in teaching 
subjects in water-tight compartments.' § ' Thorough knowledge of one 
subject, and practice in it,' said Goethe, 'produces higher culture than 
incomplete knowledge of a hundred subjects.' || 

In fact, since the theory of a general (as opposed to a specific) 
education, was first formulated, there have never been wanting 
warnings ' that we ought to abstain from dividing and parcelling out 
(morceler) what nature has made one and indivisible.'^ 

Why then has the application to Secondary School curricula of 
the metaphor of a broad foundation produced instead a number of 
loose stones? 

* Adams, loc. cit. pp. 285, 286. f Adams, loc. cit. p. 18. 

X This presumption is examined and condemned in Chapter 21, § 8. See, 
especially, p. 355 above. 

§ Nature, ist October, 1914, p. 131. 

II Quoted by Dr Georg Kerschensteiner, The Schools and the Nation, p. 256. 

^ A. Bertrand, L'Enseignement Integral, p. 53. Quoted by Adams, loc. cit. 
p. 190. 



APPENDIX A 471 

It may be that, like Latin in mediaeval schools, or hke reading, 
writing, arithmetic and other subjects taught to children in Elementary 
Schools, the various subjects taught (under the influence of the broad 
foundation metaphor) to adolescent boys and girls are regarded as 
'instrumental' subjects: subjects without which further education in 
the university, in the works, or in business would be impossible. But 
this explanation is not satisfactory. For Latin, a common enough 
subject in the Secondary Schools, is no longer an essential instrument 
for everybody. And, in view of the different methods by which Latin 
and modern languages are respectively taught in most English schools, 
if Latin be replaced by a modern language, the substitution will 
result in less demand for concentrated attention on the part of the 
educand and so, as we have seen, will interfere with the training of his 
character. The modern language may, however, be taught so as to 
be of use as an instrument in life and in further learning; but, if it 
is so taught, it will not be so tested. Many a man who can read and 
master foreign works upon a subject in which he is interested, and 
who can understand, and be understood, when he travels in the 
foreign country, would yet fail hopelessly to pass a School Certificate 
or Matriculation examination in that subject, an examination which 
might nevertheless be passed by one who could not use the language 
either to read or to converse with profit on any serious subject. It 
is equally certain that the study of a special period of history for some 
school examination is not an economical way of providing oneself with 
an 'instrument.' 

If the ' instrument ' explanation fails, can it be that certain kinds 
of knowledge — some of the loose stones of ' liberal education ' which 
together go by the name of a broad foundation — are thought to be of 
value for their own sakes? Matthew Arnold defined culture as 'the 
acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said 
in the world.'* But unless, in Herbert Spencer's phrase, we 'turn 
fact into faculty,' unless our knowledge makes us act differently, it 
is of no value to us. There is no use in knowing all good if we are not 
educated to seek the highest when we see it. 

The underlying ideal of the humanists (writes Professor Adams) is a 
hberal education, the education suited for a free man. When we go into 
the matter we find that what is understood by a free man is one wlio is 
not compelled to acquire any special skill for purposes of utility, but can 
give his time to subjects that are regarded as of special culture value. 
He can take up his time for example with literature, music, the fine arts. 
But in the last resort he is not regarded as a man who is cultured because 

* Literature and Dogma, xiii (1876). 



472 APPENDICES 

he has studied those subjects, but because he is famiUar with them. It is 
not that they have left a residuum of training and that he is therefore a 
better man than those who have not had the opportunity of being trained 
in the same way. He is esteemed because he knows the particular thing 
he has studied. If, as Ruskin assures us, a man damns himself for ever as 
a man of culture when he speaks of Iphigenia as Iphig^nia, it is not because 
his ear has not been trained in general, but because he has not learned how 
to accent that particular word and others like it; in short, because he does 
not know things that people of a particular set do know. To be able to 
distinguish a BotticelU from a Fra Lippo Lippi marks a man as a person 
of culture.... It is true that many men pass for cultured who do not know 
the subjects they are supposed to know, but still they are supposed to 
know them. The very fact that they must pretend to know certain things 
is a confession that a knowledge of some specific facts is regarded as in 
itself essential to culture. In plain English, the man of culture is taught 
certain things that are regarded as necessary to be known in the particular 
circle in which he moves. The training of a man of culture is .as technical 
as the training of a civil engineer*. 

Confusion between the acquisition of knowledge, necessarily the 
means of education, with the true end of education is by no means 
confined to the humanists. Professor Perry, in his address to the 
British Association in Australia, complained bitterly that there is not 
more natural science taught in our Secondary Schools and in our 
universities : 

It is exasperating that all the most important, the most brilliant, the 
most expensively educated people in England, our poets and our novelists, 
our legislators and lawyers, our soldiers and sailors, our great manu- 
facturers and merchants, our clergymen and schoolmasters, are quite 
ignorant of natural science.... The university man, ignorant of science, 
becomes a ruler of our great nation... and without turning a hair he fraudu- 
lently accepts this important duty for which he is utterly unfit.... But 
I get too angry when I think of what our universities might do in the great 
world of natural science and of the futility of almost all their studies.... 
The general higher education of the community is being altogether neg- 
lectedf. 

Professor Perry's view appears to be shared by a number of 
influential men of science who have joined him in signing a recent 
memorandum on the 'Neglect of Science.' They urge the reform of 
the competitive examination for the higher appointments in the Home 
and Indian Civil Services, by giving ' a preponderating — or, at least, 
an equal — share of marks... to natural science subjects, with safe- 
guards so as to make them tests of genuine scientific education.'! 

* Adams, loc. cit. p. 240. -f Nature, ist October, 1914, pp. 126, 127. 

X Times, 2nd February, 1916. 



APPENDIX A 473 

A grateful nation should welcome any reform which would secure 
that all candidates for Civil Service appointments possessed a sufficient 
(instrumental) knowledge of natural science to enable them to dis- 
charge their duties effectively, and any reform which would secure 
that certain posts in the Civil Service were filled by men who had 
achieved distinction in the appropriate branch of natural science 
should be no less welcome. But the present method of selecting and 
educating civil servants has produced such satisfactory results from 
certain points of view that the reforms which are undoubtedly 
necessary ought not to be made without considerable circumspection. 
In securing the new that is good we are, in this connexion, warned 
by Lord Cromer* to be careful not to sacrifice whatever of the old 
is even better. The importance of Lord Cromer's warning is the more 
apparent when the memorandum we have quoted thus describes the 
consequences of the particular reforms proposed by the signatories: 

...the object we have in view would be obtained. Science would rise 
in our schools to a proper position... our of&cials of all kinds, no less than 
members of Parliament, would come to be as much ashamed of ignorance 
of the commonplaces of science as they would now be if found guilty of 
bad spelling and arithmeticf. 

Such language gives rise to a fear lest knowledge about natural 
science be supposed to be of value 'for its own sake.' One needs to 
be ashamed of ignorance only in so far as it connotes incapacity to 
act as one should. The acquisition of knowledge, whether of natural 
science, or of ' the best that has been known or said in the world ' is 
not the object of education. Mr Gradgrind was wrong in saying that 
'what we want is facts,' and meaning that he preferred the knowledge 
about horses possessed by one child who could not behave intelligently J 
in the presence of horses but could quote a long definition beginning 
'Quadruped graminivorous,' to that of another who, although unable 
to define a horse, had spent her whole life with a travelling circus. 
And we shall be equally wrong if we suppose that mere knowledge of 
isolated facts that can be reproduced in a competitive examination, 
is comparable in importance with character, one of the most important 
constituents of which is, as we have seen, the kind of knowledge that 
is related to daily experience and modifies conduct in all its vocational 
and social aspects. 

* In an address delivered to the Royal Society of Arts, following a paper by 
Mr P. J. Hartog entitled: 'Examinations in their bearing on national efficiency' 
(Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, 3rd and loth February, 191 1). 

f Loc. cit. italics mine. 

j Cf. Adams, loc. cit. p. ig8. 



474 APPENDICES 

If now the various separate subjects, which, in practice, the 'broad 
foundation ' metaphor gets taught in secondary schools, are not taught 
because they are going to be directly useful as instruments of further 
education; and if they are not taught because they are of value for 
their own sakes, whether as humanities or as sciences ; are they perhaps 
taught in the hope that each subject will develop some faculty which, 
if not so cultivated, would be for ever stunted and thus leave the 
whole personality irreparably mutilated? If so, 'The breakdown of 
the doctrine of formal training'* dooms this hope to disappointment. 

We have thus been unable to discover any intelligible educational 
aim which can justify the prevalent use of this metaphor or its 
consequences in the schools. Aimlessness alone can account for either 
the one or the other. This, or any other, product of aimlessness in 
education is not a matter of indifference. What is not good in educa- 
tion is very definitely bad, if for no other reason than that the time 
available for the education of even the most promising educand is so 
short. Of the particular product of aimlessness which we have con- 
sidered as typical — the broad foundation metaphor — one of the 
greatest of living educators f writes: 'The most fatal demand which 
the higher schools have ever had to face is the demand for general all- 
round education. 'j 

* Adams, loc. cit. p. 215. See also p. 17 above. 

t This judgment is based on Dr Kerschensteiner's work before 1914. 

J Kerschensteiner, loc. cit. p. 255. 



APPENDIX B 

Mathematical Appendix to Chapters 7 and 8. 

§ I. Frequency Disiribiitions and Hierarchies* . 

Suppose that, in a series of mental tests, the performances of one 
of the persons, or subjects, tested are measured by q-^, q.^, -...qn 
respectively in the several tests, n in number. Then all available 
evidence goes to shew that, if the number of individuals tested is very 
large, the number, p, of subjects, the measures of whose performances 
in a given test lie between q and q + hq, will be given by 



That is to say, each of the n q's will be distributed according to the 
normal probability law. In this equation a measures the standard 
deviation of q: the probable error divided by -6745. We shall suppose 
that the various performances are measured in such units that the 
CT, or standard deviation, is the same for all the ^'s in question. 

If now we denote the correlation between any two ^''s, say qg and qt, 
by rgt , the relation which Professor Spearman found to obtain between 
the correlations in sufficiently dissimilar mental tests may, as Mr Cyril 
Burt t has pointed out, be conveniently expressed by the equation 

^_^^^^ {a,b,s,t=^i,2, ...,n)...{i). 

When the relations| expressed by this equation obtain between the 
several correlations (r's), these correlations are said, in Professor 
Spearman's phrase §, to form a 'hierarchy.' In actual practice, 
Professor Spearman found that the conditions for a hierarchy, ex- 
pressed by equations (i), were approximately satisfied by the correla- 
tions between the performances recorded in his first paper. Professor 

* See above, p. 105. 

f B. J. P. Vol. Ill, p. 159, where Mr Burt says that equation (i) is immediately 
deducible from an equation ( / ) previously given by Spearman and Kriiger, Zeit. 
f. Psych. Vol. 44, p. 85. In a subsequent paper {B. J. P. Vol V, 1912-13, p. 65) 
Professor Spearman and Dr Hart refer to the equation as ' Burt's equation.' For 
convenience of reference it has also been described by Mr Burt's name in papers by 
the present writer, Proc. R. S. (A), Vol. 96 (1919), pp. 91 et seq., and B. J. P. 
Vol. IX (1919), pp. 345 et seq., although, as Mr Burt acknowledged, it follows 
directly from Professor Spearman's earlier work. 

X The number of independent relations, expressed by equation (i), between 
the ^n {n - i) r's is ^n (n -3). See Garnett, B. J. P. Vol. x (1920), pp. 245, 257. 

§ Am. J. P. Vol. 15 (1904), p. 274. 



476 APPENDICES 

Spearman pointed out that a perfect hierarchy would result — or, in 
other words, that the conditions for a hierarchy would be completely 
satisfied — if the correlations in question were wholly due to the 
presence of a single general factor*. Accordingly, the tendency of the 
correlations, in the cases described by Professor Spearman in his first 
(1904) paper, to satisfy equations (i) and so to form a hierarchy, was 
consistent with Professor Spearman's theory that these correlations 
are principally due to the operation of a single general factor. 

§ 2. Mr Burt's Correlation Tables^. 

The following is Mr Burt's discussion of the question how far the 
correlations recorded in his tables satisfy the conditions for a hierarchy 
set forth in equation (i) above: 

How far [he writes] ...do these observed correlations form an ideal 
hierarchy? They clearly do not fit into the proposed scheme with perfect 
precision. Nor indeed can we expect them to do. Like all empirical 
observations they are subject to error. What we have to demand is the 
following. 

Firstly, the deviations from the ideal hierarchy should, on the whole, 
be neither more nor less than the probable erroneousness of the observa- 
tions. The theoretical values for the ideal hierarchy. . .are given in the tables, 
together with the deviations of the observed coefficients from them, and 
the probable errors for the coefficients are given in two decimal places only. 
For the Elementary School group, the average deviation works out at -loo, 
while the average probable error comes to -loi. For the Preparatory 
School group the average deviation works out at •165, while the average 
probable error comes to -162. So far, then, a neater agreement between 
observation and theory could scarcely be desired. 

* The proof is as follows: It has been shewn (Garnett, Proc. R. S. (A), Vol. 96 
(1919), equations (7) and (8), p. 94; see also Garnett, B. J. P. Vol. x (1920)) that 
each of the n q's may be expressed as a linear function of a number N, where 
N<ifin, oi independent variables x^, x^, .... Xjv, each of which is distributed according 
to the normal law with the same standard deviation as before, by means of equations 
of the form 

?j = sh ■ Xi + J2.X2 + ... + ,l.\. x.v (s = I, 2, ..., w)...(2), 

where ,1^^ + J^^ + ... + /v^ = i ...(3)- 

It has also been shewn (Garnett, Proc. R. S. Vol. 96, equation (16), p. 96) that 

r^t — »'i • th + 5/2 • (^2 + • • • + s^A' • t^N- 
If all the q's have only one common factor, say x^, and no group factors — i.e. 
;t;'s having finite coefficients in more than one of the equations (2) — we therefore 
have 

>-«( = ih- tlx (s, t = 1,2, ..., n) 

so that *_^^n> (a.b, s.t = 1.2, ...,n)...(i). 

rat nt 

f See Tables I and II on pp. 106 to 109. 



APPENDIX B 477 

Hardly less reassuring is the accordance disclosed on turning from the 
average deviation to the extreme deviations. In a 'normal'* chance 
distribution, we should expect a deviation three times greater than the 
probable error to occur about once in 24 times. Here we have 78 coefficients 
for each group. Here, then, we should expect such a deviation to occur 
about three times in each. Actually, it occurs four times in the Elementary 
School, and twice in the other. Again, a deviation four times as great as 
the probable error may be expected to occur by mere chance about once 
in 124 times. Here it occurs twice in the Elementary School, and not at all 
in the other. Some of these deviations are themselves suggestive. At the 
Elementary School, three of the four large deviations occur with Imputed 
Intelligence...; such irregularities are here quite natural, since the method 
of estimating intelligence was not homologous with the methods of estimat- 
ing the other capacitiesf. 

§ 3. Hierarchical CorrelationsX. 

On p. no above, reference is made to a paper by the present 
writer in which he investigated the consequences that follow whenever 
the correlations between the measures of mental tests — or between 
any other variables that are distributed according to the normal law* 
with the same standard deviation — satisfy the conditions for a hier- 
archy given in equations (i) on p. 475. Mathematically expressed, the 
result is that, if the correlations between n variables, q^, q^, ...,§'„, 
each of which is distributed according to the normal law with the same 
standard deviation, satisfy the conditions for a hierarchy expressed 
in equations (i), the ^''s may be expressed, by means of 'vector' 
equations of the form 

as linear functions of m + i independent variables, each of which is 
distributed according to the normal law with the same standard 
deviation as that of the ^'s, and among which one {g) is a single 
general factor^ while each of the n others {Xj^, x.^, ....x^) is a specific 
factor, no group factors being present. In the above equations (4), r^g 

* For the definition of the ' normal ' probability law or normal chance distribu- 
tion, see above, § i of this Appendix. 

t Loc. cit. pp. 163, 164. X See above, p. no. 

§ In what follows we shall use the term ' single general factor ' to denote only 
that one of w + 1 independent factors (each distributed according to the normal 
law with the same standard deviation) which — when n correlated ^'s (each again 
distributed according to the normal law with still the same standard deviation) 
are expressed in terms of them alone, and therefore (see footnote * on p. 476 and 
equations (4) above) as linear functions of them — enters into each of the q's, while 
the remaining n independent factors are specific, each entering into a different q. 
This definition and reasons for the need of some such definition of a ' single general 
factor' are given in a recent paper on 'General Ability, Cleverness and Purpose' 
(Garnett, B. J. P. Vol. ix (1919), P- 347)- 

G. E. 31 



478 APPENDICES 

is the coefficient of correlation between q^ and the general factor, g; 
and dg = cos~^ Vgg. There are no group factors. 

§ 4. Dr Thomson's Dice. 

It is true that Dr Thomson {B. J . P. Vol. viii (Sept. 1916), pp. 271 
et seq.) has constructed correlation tables shewing the correlations 
between dice-throwing tests among which at first sight there appears 
to be no general factor but only group factors, and that Dr Thomson's 
correlation tables correspond as closely with perfect hierarchies as do 
the correlation tables (Tables I and II) obtained by Mr Burt. It has, 
however, been shewn (Garnett, B. J. P. Vol. x (March, 1920), pp. 242 
et seq.), firstly, that the chance of obtaining, by means of group factors 
and without a general factor, so close an approximation as that 
obtained by Dr Thomson to the satisfaction of the conditions for 
a hierarchy in a set of experimental tests such as those of Mr Burt 
is less than one in one hundred thousand million; and, secondly, that 
the correlated variables in such dice-throwing tests as those of 
Dr Thomson, although they appear at first sight to possess no 
general factor but only group factors, do, in fact, become expressible 
in terms of a single general factor with specific factors only, when the 
number of independent variables, and therefore the number of dice, 
become infinite; and it is only when the number of independent 
variables, and therefore the number of dice, is infinite that perfect 
hierarchies can be obtained in dice-throwing tests of this kind. 

§5. Imperfect Hierarchies*. 

The tendency of the measures of dissimilar mental qualities to be 
linear functions of a single general factor and specific factors only, 
without group factors, may be expressed by saying that, if ^j , ^g* • • • » ?« 
are the measures of the several qualities tested, then 

gs = h -g + W, . Xg + sWi . Zi -I- sMg . ^2 + •••' -"(S) 

where qg is the measure of the sth quality tested; g is the general 
factor (which would be a single general factor, as defined above f, 
were the coefficients of the group factors all zero, instead of merely 
being on the average very small); Xg is a specific factor; z^, z^, -.. 
are group factors whose coefficients («'s) tend severally and in the 
aggregate to be very small compared with the coefficients (/'s) of g or 
(m's) of the specific factors; and, as before, each of the q's and other 
variables is distributed according to the normal law with the same 
standard deviation. 

* See above, p. no. f ^^ footnote § on p. 477. 



APPENDIX B 479 

§ 6. Professor Spearman's 'Correlation between Columns ' 
Conditions * . 

On p. 112 above, reference j is made to the present writer's investi- 
gation of the consequences of the fulfilment of Professor Spearman's 
'correlation between columns' conditions. The result of that investiga- 
tion is to shew that, if the correlations between columns conditions — 
namely, that the correlation between every pair of columns in a 
correlation table is ± i — are satisfied by the correlations between 
n variables, t/j, q^, ..., q^, each of which is distributed according 
to the normal law with the same standard deviation, and each of 
which, we may suppose, measures some mental quality tested, then 
the difference between each of the correlated ^''s and a constant 
multiple of another variable y (that is independent of the q's but 
distributed according to the normal law with the same standard 
deviation) may be expressed in terms of a single general factor and 
specific factors only. Put mathematically, the consequence of the 
satisfaction of the correlation between columns conditions is that J 

q/={q^-y.k) {i + k^)~^ = g .cosd, + x, .31X10^ (s= 1,2, ...,«). ..(6), 

•where ^ is a constant, and where at^ , ;V2» •••>Xn' S ^-^e « + i independent 
variables, each of which is distributed according to the normal law 
with the same standard deviation as that of the ^'s (or of the ^"s 
defined by this equation), and among which ^ is a single general factor 
while all the ^'s are specific factors, no group factors being present. 
When k becomes zero (as happens whenever the conditions for a 
hierarchy in equations (i) are satisfied), equations (6) become the 
■same as equations (4) ; in which case the ^''s will be expressible, accord- 
ing to the vector law of equations (4), in terms oi n + 1 independent 
variables, each of which is distributed according to the normal law, 
and one of which is a single general factor while the others are specific 
factors. And this happens when the ^'s measure sufficiently dissimilar 
mental qualities; for k then becomes zero and the conditions for a 
hierarchy are satisfied by the correlations of the ^'s. 

§ 7. Imperfect Fulfilment of the Conditions^. 
The consequences of the imperfect fulfilment of the 'correlation 
between columns' conditions are stated above on p. 112. They may 
be otherwise expressed as follows: The fact that the correlations 

* See above, p. 112. f Gamett, Proc. R. S. (A), Vol. xcvi, pp. 102-5. 

J Garnett, loc. cit. equation 53, p. 105, l^ in that equation being replaced by 
<;os^,. § See above, p. 112. 

31—2 



48o APPENDICES 

between every set of mental tests approximately satisfy the ' correla- 
tion between columns' conditions or the conditions for a hierarchy, is 
evidence that the measures of the qualities tested (or, if the correlated 
qualities are not sufficiently dissimilar so that the conditions for a 
hierarchy are not satisfied, the difference between these variables and 
a real multiple of an w + ith variable independent of them all) are 
made up, firstly and principally, of a single general factor and specific 
factors, and secondly and to a comparatively insignificant extent, 
of group factors. Or, put mathematically, our result is that* 

q;={q,-ky){T. + k'^) ^ = 1, . g+m^ .x, + .n^ .z^ + .n^ . Z2+ (7) 

where q^ is the measure of the sth quality tested in such units that 
all the ^'s have the same standard deviation; ^ is a real quantity 
which vanishes when the conditions for a hierarchy are satisfied ; g is 
the general factor (which would be a single general factor as defined 
above I were the coefficients of the group factors all zero instead of 
only being on the average very small); Xg is a specific factor; and 
Zj, Z2, ... are group factors whose coefficients (n's) tend severally and 
in the aggregate to be very small compared with the coefficients {I's) 
of g, or (m's) of the specific factors. In this equation, g, the x's, and 
the z's are independent variables, each of which is distributed accord- 
ing to the normal law with the same standard deviation as that 
of the ^'s. 

The same result may be expressed by sa3dng that the measure, 
qg, of the sth of n sufficiently dissimilar mental tests tends to be com- 
pounded, according to the vector law of equation (4), namely 

qg = g .cosdg + Xg.sindg, (s = i, 2, ..., w) ...(4), 

of a single general factor (g) common to all the tests, and of a specific 
factor (Xg) independent of the general factor and peculiar to the sth 
test, the specific factors (x's) entering into the several tests being 
also independent of each other; but that, in the case of a set of in- 
sufficiently dissimilar mental tests, qg in the above equation must be 

replaced by ^/ or {qg — ky) (i + k^) , where y and k have the same 
meanings as before |. 

* See Garnett, B. J. P. Vol. ix, pp. 365, 366. 

t In § 3 of this Appendix : see footnote § to p. 477. 

J In equations (4), as in equations (7), the ^'s, the x's and g (and y when 
present) are each distributed according to the normal law, and measured in 
such units that their standard deviations are the same. 



APPENDIX B 481 

§ 8. Will and General Ability*. 

Mr Burt's tests furnish the following further item of evidence that, 
if Will exists as a general factor f, it must be the same quality as that 
which is measured by g, the single general factor, and which, following 
Professor Spearman and Dr Hart J, we have called 'General Ability.' 

If the Will exists and ever enters into anything, then the Wills 
of the subjects of Mr Burt's tests § certainly entered into many, if not 
into all, of these tests. 

Of the two groups [of reagents, says Mr Burt], the Preparatory School 
boys were perhaps slightly superior in conscientious steadiness and care; 
while the Elementary School boys (who were markedly pleased at the 
interruptions of their regular routine, and were further fortified in their 
specially prolonged examination by the promise of a prize for the best) 
were perhaps slightly superior in spontaneous interest and attention. 

It is clear then that the boys of both groups did try. Whoever will 
repeat, say, the alphabet test against the clock will be convinced 
that they must have tried, for he will be conscious of his own effort 
of Will. Moreover, we have already cited the evidence of DrMcDougall, 
to whose suggestion Mr Burt's research owed its origin ||, concerning 
the profound effect of Will in mental tests, and especially in memory 
tests^. 

If then, we suppose that the measure, W, of a subject's Will is, 
like the measures of other mental qualities, distributed among different 
subjects according to the normal law, and that the scale on which 
W is measured is such as to give to W the same standard deviation 
as that of the measures of 'g' and of the mental qualities tested, it 
follows, as we have seen**, that W may be expressed as a linear 
function of a number of independent variables among which we may 
include g and the specific factors of Mr Burt's tests. And, since W 
enters most obviously into those tests that have the highest correla- 
tions with each other, and therefore -ff with g, it is reasonable to 
assume that W has a finite correlation with g. We may then, if we 
please, express ^ as a linear function of W, and of any number of 
independent variables x^, x^, ..., x^, each of which is independent 
of W and distributed according to the normal law with the same 
standard deviation as that of W and of g. So we may write 

g = LW -V liXj^ + 1^X2 + ... + InXn, 

* See above, p. 116, especially footnote §. f See above, p. loi. 
X See above, p. 103. § See above, pp. 105 et seq. 

II C. Burt, loc. cit. p. 95. ^ See above, p. 100, footnote f . 

** On p. 476, footnote *, equation (2). ff See above, p. 113. 



482 APPENDICES 

where L,li, ..., /„ are constants, independent of the particular subject- 
(person) tested and connected by the relation 

L^ + 1,^+1,^+ ... + 1,^=1, 
and where x^, x^, ..., x^ are the measures of general qualities which 
belong to the same person but are independent of W and of each 
other. Moreover, if the same person's performance in any one of a 
set of sufficiently dissimilar mental tests — for example, in the alphabet 
test — is measured by q^, then approximately* 

^, = ^ cos ^, + I, sin 61, ...(4) 

where Q^ is a constant for that test, being as before independent of 
the particular person tested, but where ^^ measures a specific quality 
of the person which enters into that test but into no other. 

We have to shew that /j = /j = ••• = ^« = O- ^^ possible, suppose 
that /j is not zero. Then x^^ measures some general quality of the person 
tested which is independent of his Will, but which enters into each 
of the tests along with his Will, and in a degree which bears a constant 
ratio (Zj : L) to the degree in which his Will enters into the same test. 
Some group factors, independent of Will, have been discussed above; 
but none of them satisfies these conditions; and we have no knowledge 
of any other general factor that might do so. If, for example, we 
return to Mr Burt's 'so-called "voluntary" attention' and observe 
that it may include ' spontaneous interest ' as well as ' willed ' attention, 
we cannot identify 'spontaneous interest' with our hypothetical 
factor whose measure is Ar^; for the spontaneous interest of any 
individual tested, must vary from one test to another according to 
that particular individual's interest in the subject matter of each 
test, and this variation is quite independent of the variation (measured 
by the variation of Q^ in equation (4) from one test to another, and 
therefore quite independent of the particular person tested) of the 
degree in which his Will can influence the result of the test. In short, 
we know of no general quality Xy that can satisfy the prescribed 
conditions. It is therefore in accordance with all the facts known to 
us to assume that /i = 0; and similarly that l^==l^= ... = l^ = o. It 
follows that L = I and therefore from equation (4) that g = W . 

So our two assumptions, one on this and one on the preceding page, 
lead to a further indication that Will is identical with the general 
factor whose measure is g. 

The view that g measures power to concentrate attention by an 
effort of Will, or, in neural terms, power to reinforce excitement in 
* Equation (4) in § 7 of this Appendix (on p. 480 above). 



APPENDIX B 483 

any active system of higher level arcs, finds further confirmation in 
Dr Webb's elaborate investigation. Of the forty-three correlations 
of 'g' with the forty-three quahties estimated by the prefects*, the 
greatest is o-6o which measures the correlation between '^' and ' extent 
of mental work bestowed on usual studies (No. 28t).' The correlation 
of 'g' with the objectively measured Examinational Ability is 0-67. 
The only other correlations of 'g' that exceed 0-50 are those with 
three of the intellectual qualities, namely, Quickness of Apprehension, 
Profoundness of Apprehension, and Power of getting through mental 
work rapidly. 

Dr Webb has supplied further particulars of the estimated quality 
— 'extent of mental work bestowed on usual studies' — which the 
general factor correlates most highly. In an appendix he has collected 
selections 'from the reports of the observers as to what they under- 
stood by the terms used in the schedules, and what guided them in 
marking their subjects. '% The following are some of the entries under 
the head 'extent of work bestowed on usual studies': 

The thoroughness with which he attended to his work. 

The + men possessed power of concentration — difficulties did not throw 
them off a task. 

The + men worked hard and conscientiously; their work was well 
prepared and evidenced much thought and reading. 

The + men, even when they failed, seemed to have been thoughtful. 

Comparison of these entries with those under the other heads makes 
it clear that this quality, — 'extent of mental work bestowed on usual 
studies' — which, of all the estimated qualities, correlates most highly 
with 'g,' is also the quality which most involves Will, or power to 
concentrate attention : an observation that is in accordance with the 
conclusion — namely that g measures Will — to which we have already 
been led §. 

§ 9. The Co-planar Condition\\. 

The condition that the measures of three or more correlated 
qualities should depend on two, and two only, independent variables 
may be obtained as follows. 

We have already^ seen that the measurements (^'i, q^, ..., gj oi 
the qualities tested in Dr Webb's investigation may be expressed as 
linear functions of a number A^ (where N -^ n) of independent variables, 

* See above, p. 120, and footnote |J to p. 119. 

t In I able III, on p. 126 above. % hoc. cit. {supra, p. 98) p. 84 

§ See above, p. 117 || See above, p. 120. 

\ See footnote * to p. 476 in § i of Appendix B. 



484 APPENDICES 

Xi, X2, '.-, x^„ each of which is distributed according to the normal law 
with the same standard deviation as that of the q's. For example, 

gs = sh ■ H + ^h • .1^2 + ••• + shw ■ ^N •••(2) 

where .^i^ + Ji^ + • • • + .Av' =1 • • • (3) • 

It may also be shewn that the correlation, r^^, between any two of the 
^'s, qs and q^, is given according to the cosine law* expressed by 

^s< = sh ■ th + sk ■ th + ••• + ^N ■ t^N •••(8)- 

However great may be the number, N, of independent variables we 
can, by a hnear transformation, choose new independent variables 
Ji' y2> yz' •■■ such that two variables, q^ and q^, depend on two and 
two only among them, say y^ and 3/2- Equations (2) may then be 
replaced by 

q, = 3/1 cos ds + ^2 sin 6s 

qt = Ji cos St + 3/2 sin Bt 
so that r^t = cos {6^-^61) ... (9) . 

This equation may be interpreted by saying that, if we measure the 
jy^ and y^ of any person along two axes Oy^^ and Oy2 at right angles 
to one another, and plot the point, P {y^, y^). corresponding to that 
person, so that y^ and y^ are the projections of OP on Oy^ and on 
Oy2 respectively, and if we then draw a hne Oq^, which we may call 
the axis of qg, making with Oy^ an angle 6^ (measured in the direction 
from Oyi to Oy2), the degree in which the person possesses the quahty 
measured by qg will be equal to the projection of OP on Oqg . Moreover, 
the correlation between qg and qt is equal to the cosine of the angle 
qgOqt', so that this correlation represents the average deviation in 
qg (or qf) corresponding to unit deviation in q^. (or qg). We are thus 
afforded a very simple geometrical conception of the measure of 
correlation. 

The condition that three qualities ^1 , q^ and q^ should be expressible 
in terms of two, and only two, independent factors follows at once. It 
is the condition that Oq^^, Oq^ and Oq.^ should lie in a plane; or that 
the sum of the angles qiOq^, q^Pqi, and q^Oq^ should be zero; or that 

cos-i ^23 + cos-i ^31 + cos-i ^12 = ^ • • • (lo) ; 

or that ^23^ + V + r^2^ - 2/23^31^12 = ^ ...(n). 

* Garnett, Proc. R. S. equation (16), p. 96 



APPENDIX B 485 

§ 10. The Correlations of Cleverness* . 

The correlation of c (the measure of Cleverness, as we have defined 
it t) with the forty-eight qualities investigated by Dr Webb may be 
calculated as follows. Let us take the general factor measured by 
g, and Cleverness measured by c, as two of the independent variables 
in terms of which any of Dr Webb's qualities may be expressed. Then 
the measure of any of his qualities is given by equation (2) J, which 
now becomes 

? = ^90 • ^ + ^M • c + hH + ^4^4 + •■• + ^N^N •••(12) 
where x^, x^, ..., Xj^ are the remaining independent variables. Any of 
the qualities represented in our diagram, say Humour, is measured by 



•(13). 



h = r,h . g + r,f, . c = rg^ . g + Vi - r^^ . c, 
so that, according to the cosine law in equation (8) §, 

''^qh — '^gq • ^gh + ^c(7 • V I — rgf^ , 

from which we obtain 

^uh "go • "gh 

All the r's on the right-hand side of this equation are given in 
Dr Webb's table || of corrected coefficients for the students. If we 
substitute Dr Webb's values and calculate r^, for all values of q, 
except q^" g and q = h, we obtain the series of coefficients of corre- 
lation printed in Table III on pp. 126 and 127 above. 

§11. Evidence that a future-interest-system tends to be rich in 
affective-conative elements ^. 

On p. 152 it was argued that the future-interest-system is apt to 
contain a large proportion of affective-conative elements. Dr Webb's 
figures, so far as they go, support this conclusion. For if we examine 
Dr Webb's schedule * * of forty-eight qualities to discover which single 
one of them is most akin to our future-interest-system, we shall, at 
first sight, select quality number 32 — ' Degree in which he works with 
distant objects in view (as opposed to living from hand to mouth).' 
And if we then examine the appendix to Dr Webb's paper, giving 
'a selection from the reports of the observers as to what they under- 
stood by the terms used in the schedules, and what guided them in 

* See above, pp. 125 to 127 and footnote XX on P- HQ- t On p. 123, above. 
X See above, pp. 476 and 484. § In § 9 of this Appendix (p. 484). 

II Loc. cit., Table VI. ^ See above, Chapter 8, § 3, pp. 152 to 155. 

** Quoted above in Table III on pp. 126, 127, 



486 APPENDICES 

marking their subjects,'* our selection of this thirty-second quality — 
which we may for shortness describe as 'future objective' — will be 
justified. The measure of ' future objective ' was not, of course, a direct 
measure of the extent to which a subject's thought and conduct were 
guided by his future-interest-system; such a measure the observers 
did not attempt to make. But the observers' reports f make it 
abundantly clear that, in measuring 'future objective,' they came near 
to measuring the influence on thought and conduct exercised by the 
future-interest-system . 

Let us next enquire which of Dr Webb's forty-eight qualities most 
nearly measures wealth of affective-conative neurograms; or, in 
other words, which corresponds most closely to emotional interest. 
Once more there can be little doubt about our answer, whether we 
make it after merely inspecting the schedule or after carefully 
examining the observers' reports on the meanings they attached to 
the scheduled names of qualities. The quality the measure of which 
comes nearest to measuring richness in affective-conative neurograms 
is the seventh in the schedule — 'Degree of aesthetic feeling (love of 
the beautiful for its own sake). 'J 

* Loc. cit. Appendix II, pp. 84 to 96. 

f The following is Dr Webb's ' selection from the reports of the observers as 
to what they understood by' this quality (Number 32) 'and what guided them 
in marking their subjects': 

'(a) " Did he always live for the present, or did the future ever trouble him, 
with regard to (i) his pleasures, (ii) his studies or duties?" {b) "The + men 
showed forethought, the - men were happy-go-lucky." (c) " One who lives 
and works now in order to enjoy results in the future." (d) "The capacity for 
acting in the present strongly guided by what may happen in the future, however 
distant." (e) "The + men worked hard to educate themselves or to fit themselves 
for their career, as opposed to working to get top in an examination." (/) "The 
+ men work looking towards the future; in fact T — 's religious convictions cause 
him to work wholly and entirely to fit himself for the life after this." (g) "The 
extent to which he works as a means to an end." (h) "The extent to which he 
looks forward to and prepares for the future with a view to improving his lot".' 
(Loc. cit. p. 93.) 

X The following is Dr Webb's 'selection from the reports of the observers as 
to what they understood by' this quality (Number 7) 'and what guided them 
in marking their subjects': — 

'(a) "If he loves Art and all that is clean and pure for its own sake, then 
he has the true aesthetic feeling." (b) "Admiration for a poem, picture, book, 
etc., for its inherent beauty." (c) "Appreciative enjoyment of the beautiful as 
shewn in poetry, art, etc." (d) " Desire to perceive beauty in all its forms because 
of the pleasure brought by the perception." (e) "Love of the beautiful because 
it appealed to their finer nature and to their finer emotions." (/) "Way in 
which subject would involuntarily attend to or ignore things which are calculated 
to appeal to the aesthetic feelings".' (Loc. cit. pp. 85, 86.) 

If we remember that ' what we attend to ' is ' what interests us ' we see how clearly 
the last two quotations — and especially the last (/) — from the observers' reports 
shew that they were measuring some kind of emotional interest; in other words, 
wealth of some kind of affective-conative neurograms. 



APPENDIX B 487 

What then is the correlation between these two quahties — No. 32 
and No. 7? The corrected coefficient obtained from Dr Webb's table* 
is 79: the highest but two (and within -02 of the highest of all) of 
the forty-seven correlations of No. 7 and the highest but three of the 
forty-seven correlations of No. 32. Here then we have direct numerical 
evidence of the tendency of a strongly developed future-interest- 
system to be accompanied by a wealth of affective-conative neuro- 
grams. 

Now it is difficult, if not impossible, to see any psychological 
reason why a particular kind of interest-system should generally be 
accompanied by neurograms of a particular kind, unless indeed the 
interest-system is, at least in part, composed of the neurograms in 
question. This conclusion is supported by statistical considerations; 
for it has been shewn f that, if ^32 be the measure of the first quality 
(No. 32) and q^ of the second quaUty (No. 7) and ^(32) (7) (= 79) the 
coefficient of correlation between them, we may write 

?32 ~ ^(32) (7) ^7 + ^2''^2 + ^3^3 + ••• + I'n^n 

where ^2' ^3» •••» ^n measure qualities that are independent of q^ and 
of each other, and are distributed according to the normal probability 
law with the same standard deviation % as q^^. or ?7 '> ^^^ where 

so that l\ + l\+ ... + l\=i- (79)2 - -38, 

only. The form of the first of these equations shews that four-fifths 
(^(32) (7) = '79) of 5'?, enters into the constitution of 5-32; according with 
the view that the affective-conative neurograms which tend to accom- 
pany 'future objective' largely enter into its constitution. 

§ 12. Evidence that piirpose-neurograms tend to be rich in affective- 
conative elements. 

Our argument §, that a future-interest-system influences conduct 
in a specially high degree because a future-interest-system is rich in 
affective-conative elements, depends, as we said||, upon our previous 
conclusion^l that the presence of affective-conative elements in an 
interest-system increases the influence of that system upon the flow 
of excitement through the brain. Dr Webb's figures are in agreement 
with this earlier conclusion; for they shew that certain purpose 

* Loc. cit. Table VI. t See above, equation (2) on p. 476. 

X Dr Webb's qualities were all distributed according to the normal probability 
law and with the same standard deviation. § See above, p. 154. 

II See above, p. 154. 1[ See above, pp. 91, 92. 



488 APPENDICES 

qualities * which stand in a specially close relation to character (and 
therefore, as we have seenf, to conduct) have also specially high 
correlations with the quality (No. 7 in Table III) that most nearly 
measures wealth of affective-conative neurograms. 

Thus Dr Webb found that the group factor that we described 
as purposefulness I was contained in a high degree by the following 
qualities §, whose correlations with 'profoundness of apprehension' 
(No. 36 in the schedule ||) and with ' common sense ' (No. 37) most 
exceed their correlations with 'quickness of apprehension' (No. 35) 
and with 'originahty of ideas' (No. 38) : — 

On the positive side (having positive correlations with No. 36 and 
No. 37): 



'Tendency not to abandon tasks from mere changeability.' 
'Degree in which he works with distant objects in view.' 
' Tendency not to abandon tasks in the face of obstacles.' 
'Tendency to do kindnesses on principle.' 
'Trustworthiness (performing his believed duty).' 
' Conscientiousness (keenness of interest in the goodness and wicked- 
ness of actions).' 
'Interest in religious beliefs and ceremonies.' 
' Pure-mindedness.' 
' Extent of mental work bestowed upon usual studies.* 

On the negative side (having negative correlations with No. 36 
and No. ^y): 

2. 'Tendency to quick oscillation between cheerfulness and depression 

(as opposed to permanence of mood).' 
4. ' Readiness to become angry.' 



34 
32 
33 
18 
20 
21 



39 

28 



'Eagerness for admiration.' 

'Esteem of himself as a whole.' 

'Offensive manifestation of this self-esteem (superciliousness).' 

' Fondness for large social gatherings.' 

'Degree of bodily activity in pursuit of pleasure (games, etc.).'Tf 



The nature of the group factor 'purpose' has been discussed 
above* *. Suffice it here to repeat, in Dr Webb's words, that the nature 
of this factor, 'whose generality would appear to extend so widely 
in character, is in some close relation to "persistence of motives ".'ff 

* See above, pp. 155, 157 and 158 f See above, Chapter 17. 

X See above, pp. 158 and 161. § Cf. above, p. 155. 

II Quoted in Table III on pp. 126, 127 above. 

^ It should be added that the negative correlations of these 'negative' 
qualities with No. 36 and No. 37 are all less — and generally much less — in absolute 
magnitude than --53, while all but one of the positive correlations exceed -50 
(Webb, p. 54). 

** In Chapter 8, § 4 on pp. 155 et seq. ft -^^c. cit. p. 60. 



APPENDIX B 489 

In fact, these purpose qualities* (into which the group factor, /, 
defined above f, enters in the highest — positive or negative — degree), 
are those which represent the observed effects of interest-systems 
that most influence thought, and therefore conduct. And it is these 
very qualities which, along with No. 36 and No. 37 that led to their 
selection, form, with the quality (No. 7) that most nearly measures 
wealth of affective-conative neurograms, eight I out of its nine highest 
positive correlations and its three § highest negative correlations. 
Here then is statistical evidence that, at any rate in the case of 
the estimated qualities of some 200 training college students, the 
purpose interest-systems — those that most influence conduct — are 
those which are richest in affective-conative elements. 

§ 13. Pur posef Illness ||. 

We have here to notice certain facts which are accounted for if 
Dr Webb's new factor w — or rather p, that we have defined and 
^identified with w — measures the 'influence of a central purpose- 
system of neurograms on thought and conduct,' but which remain 
unexplained if p measures a general tendency towards ' persistency of 
motives.' 

In the first place, Dr Webb points out that the high partial {g 
constant) correlations of such moral qualities as ' trustworthiness ' or 
'kindness on principle' with his new factor, are consistent with 
the view that this new factor is in close relation to 'persistence of 
motives'^: for, he observes, 'the persistence of a motive in conscious- 
ness, and its power to appear in consciousness at any time, even when 

* See above, pp. 155, 157, 158. 
t On p. 156. Cf. also, footnote § to p. 155. 

J The correlations between quality No. 7 and the eight qualities are : — 
No. 20 (-81), No. 32 (-79), No. 18 (-76), 
No. 21 (-76), No. 22 (-76), No. 37 (-76), 
No. 28 (-71), No. 36 (-71), 
the correlations being given in brackets. The other high correlation of No. 7 is 
that between it and 'general excellence of character,' No. 43 (-81). 

§ The correlations between quality No. 7 and the three qualities are: — No. 4 
( --54); No. 2 ( --49); No. 5 ( -'SS), the correlations being given in brackets. 
II See pp. 160, 1 61 above. 

^ The partial (g constant) correlations of the qualities, 'trustworthiness' 
(No. 20), 'conscientiousness' (No. 21) or 'kindness on principle' (No. 18) with 
each other and with 'tendency not to abandon tasks' (Qualities Nos. 33 and 34) 
are all high. So are their partial (g constant) correlations with 'future objective' 
(quality No. 32, 'degree in which he works with distant objects in view as opposed 
to living from hand to mouth'). These partial correlations are: 

Quality No. ... ... ... 20 21 18 33 34 

Partial Correlation {g constant) 

with No. 32 ... ... ... -62 -77 -41 -74 -91 

Suppose these partial correlations are wholly due to p. Then, if x, y, measure any 



490 APPENDICES 

the field of ideas occupjdng consciousness at the moment is little, 
if at all, related to it, seems quite reasonably to be at the base of 
moral qualities. Trustworthiness, conscientiousness, kindness on 
principle, fair-play, reliability in friendship, etc. are lessons derived 
from social education. These lessons will be learnt more efl^ectively 
in proportion as they persist long and recur readily.'* On this we 
have to remark that the persistence of a motive (or as we should 
rather say, the persistence of the neurogram of the motive, for that 
alone persists) is quite distinct from its power to recur readily when- 
ever action is about to take place and whatever may be the thought- 
activities then in consciousness. Both these distinct attributes belong 
as we have seen, to a strong future-interest-system or system of purpose- 
neurograms at the centre of a single wide interest-system f. But it 
is by no means clear that any motive which leaves a strong and 
relatively permanent impression among the neurograms of the brain 
will on that account alone recur as readily as if its neurogram were 
less deep, but closely connected with neurograms of frequently 
recurring experiences. 

Again, it is not easy to see why an effectively learnt lesson con- 
cerning trustworthiness, conscientiousness or other moral quality 
should make one work with a distant object in view, and so account 
for the high (partial) correlations between 'the degree in which a 
subject works with distant objects in view' (No. 32) and the moral 
qualities, trustworthiness, and the rest. But these high correlations 
are at once explained if the second factor, measured by p, be what 
we have suggested. 

Once more, 'interest in religion' is one of the qualities into the 
constitution of which Dr Webb's factor enters J. This means that, if 
the other factors that help to make up this quality be kept constant, 
Dr Webb's factor, or p, and ' interest in religion ' should increase or 
decrease together. Now it is not easy to see why a higher degree of 
interest in religion should increase ' persistence of motives ' in general : 
the persistence of some motives it should increase, but surely not the 
persistence of all. On the other hand, a high degree of interest in 

two of these five qualities having high partial correlations {r^y . g) with each other. 
Yule's equation gives ^xy .g — '>'xp .g'^'yp .g'> so that, if r^.g is nearly unity, both 
r^p ^ g and Vyp , g must also be nearly unity. In other words, the qualities x and y 
must have high correlations with the new factor, p. 

* Webb, loc. cit. p. 60. 

f See above. Chapter 12, especially pp. 240 to 244. 

X See Webb, loc. cit. p. 59, where he states that interest in religion (Quality 
No. 22 in Table III on pp. 126, 127) and Puremindedness (Quality No. 39) give 
quite similar results to the other seven positive purpose qualities (Nos. 34, 33, 18, 
20, 21, 32 and 28) named on p. 157, above. 



APPENDIX B 491 

religion is bound to result in a high degree of interest in the future — 
especially the remote future — and therefore to increase the extent 
to which future interest influences behaviour. Here then we have 
another reason for supposing Dr Webb's factor, or p, to be what 
we have suggested, rather than 'persistence of motives,' pure and 
simple. 



APPENDIX C* 

A Note on Maximal Endarchies. 

Suppose that the originally disconnected elements have at last 
been linked together, directly or indirectly, by positing new elements 
according to paragraphs {a), (j8) and (y) on p, 209 above; and 
let us examine the resulting organisation. For this purpose we may 
reverse in imagination the order in which the organisation developed, 
and begin with the last element added to complete the linking up of 
the original elements. 

From this element, e^, not more than m elements may (paragraph 
/3) be derived. Consider then how the next m elements, e^, €3, ..., e^+i, 
will be placed in order that paragraph (y) may be satisfied when 
m + 1 elements have been posited in the reversed process that we 
are considering. 

Evidently e^, 63, ..., e^+i are all derived directly from e^. For if 
not, suppose that any one of them, say e^+x, is derived from €2 
instead of from e^ . Then the number of intermediate elements linking 
€1, 63, ..., e^ together in pairs remains the same as if e^.^! had been 
derived directly from e^; the number of intermediate elements be- 
tween e„i+i and eg is reduced by one; and the number of intermediate 
elements between e^+i and each of the remaining m — 1 elements is 
increased by one. Thus the whole number of intermediate elements 
employed in connecting the m + 1 elements to one another in pairs 
is increased by w — 2. If therefore m > 2, paragraph (y) would be 
infringed by the removal of e^+i from a position in which it was 
derived directly from Cj to a position in which it was derived directly 
from €2 (or 63 or 64 ... or e^). 

Consider now the position of the next m^ elements, 6^+2. ^m+3. •••. 
e„i»+TO+i to be posited in our reversed process. The first of them, e^+2, 
cannot be derived from e^ and must therefore be derived from one 
of the other elements. Suppose that e^+2 is derived directly from Cg. 
Then e^+z is also derived from eg. For if not it must either be derived 
from one of the other first zone elements, say eg, or else from e^+2- 
But if €fn+3 were derived from eg instead of from €2, the number of 
intermediate elements between €^-^2 and e^+g would be increased 
from one to three, while the average number of intermediate elements 
between the remaining pairs would be unaltered, the whole number 
of intermediate elements employed in connecting m + 3 elements 
* Appendix C is a note upon the proposition set forth on pp. 208 to 210 above. 



APPENDIX C 



493 



together in pairs being thus increased by two. And if e^j^g were 
derived from e,„^.j, instead of from eg, the number of intermediate 
elements between e^^+g and e^+g would be reduced by one; the number 
of intermediate elements between e^+g and all the other m+ i elements 
would be increased by one ; and the number of intermediate elements 
between the remaining pairs would be unaltered. Thus the whole 
number of intermediate elements employed in connecting the w + 3 
elements would be increased by m. In either case, then, the average 




Fig. 19. 



number of intermediate elements would be increased by the change. 
So that, to satisfy paragraph (y), e,„4.g must be directly derived from eg. 

Similarly it may be shewn that every element from e^+g to 62^+1 
is derived from eg, every element from €3^+2 to eg^+i from eg, and 
so on. 

The m^ element in the third zone must similarly, if paragraph (y) 
is to be satisfied, be derived in groups of m from the w^ elements in 
the second zone; and so on, 

G. E. 32 



494 APPENDICES 

Our proposition is therefore true when the whole number of 

elements is i -\- m + m^ + ... + ni'^ ^ = S^, say. Repeating 

m — 1 

the argument by which we shewed that the (m + 3)rd element to be 

posited in the reversed process must be derived from the same first 

zone element as the {m + 2)nd element posited, we may shew that, if 

the whole number N of elements is intermediate between S„ and 

"Ln+i, the endarchy is maximal down to the wth zone and the remaining 

N—lin elements are derived in groups of m from nth zone elements, 

except that from one nth zone element is derived the number equal 

to the excess of A^ — S„ over the positive integral multiple of m that 

is next less than N — H^- 

Thus, if m = 3 and w = 2, so that S„ = 13 and l^n+i = 40, and the 

whole number of elements is A^ = 18, the arrangement determined by 

paragraphs (a), {^) and (y) is as shewn in Fig. 19 above, being a 

'maximal endarchy' down to the wth (second) layer which includes 

€5, €q, ..., €13. 



APPENDIX D* 

A Note on Hobbies and Holidays. 

Among the pedagogic applications of the principle of the single 
wide interest arrived at in Book II, consideration should be given to 
hobbies and holidays. A hobby is an interest more or less discon- 
nected from the main interest of one's life. To it, therefore, there 
corresponds an interest-system which, if not altogether separate from 
one's principal interest-system, has at least a separate centre or focus. 
The synapses between the principal system and the focal elements of 
a subsidiary interest-system that corresponds to a hobby, will be of 
higher resistance than those that connect any neighbouring elements 
of the principal system, and in this respect they will differ from 
synapses near to the centre of the single wide interest-system that we 
were discussing in Chapter 12 above; for these latter, as we have seen, 
always form part of paths that go on deepening as the centre of the 
single wide interest-system is approached. In general then, the 
possession of a hobby imphes the existence of a subsidiary centre of 
interest in its possessor's neurography; so that the whole neurography 
cannot have the form of such a single wide interest-system as we 
have taken to be the goal of education on its neurographic side. It 
would therefore seem at first sight that logical consistency would 
require educators to discourage hobbies. But further reflexion 
reminds us that no one, even in the most critical stages of his education, 
can devote the whole of every day to the voluntary development of 
his single wide interest-system; and that, therefore, it is generally 
preferable that part of the time necessarily available for in- 
voluntary thought-activities should be devoted to a hobby, that may 
later be absorbed into the growing single wide interest-system, rather 
than that it should leave no neurographic record of which use is ever 
likely to be made. Only, no hobby interest should become so wide or 
so deep as actively to interfere with the growth of the single side 
interest-system. 

Another reason for encouraging hobbies, within the limits set by 

the preceding sentence, is that the possession of strong interests, 

subsidiary to and centred in one's central religious purpose, but not 

otherwise closely connected with one's everyday activities, may add 

* Appendix D is a note for which room could not be found on p. 334 above. 

32—2 



496 APPENDICES 

to one's happiness and increase the usefulness of one's pubKc service 
by making hoHdays possible. Unless there exists some such subsidiary 
interest, preferably associated with physical activity, it will not be 
so easy to withdraw attention from the habitual subjects of one's 
thought, and thus to allow the activity of the corresponding well-worn 
nerve tracts to subside when these neurograms need rest. 

How far hobbies should be reserved for hoUdays depends upon 
the number of these holidays. Where they are few and far between, 
hobbies cannot be confined to them. But it is probably preferable 
that people who have original and constructive work to do — members 
of Class A described in Chapter 20* — should have long enough holidays 
to permit of hobby interests remaining inactive between holidays, 
except indeed such hobbies as demand and will receive but little time 
and no effort. Our reason for this view is that, if only a few hours, 
perhaps eight in number, of every day are given to the main work 
of one's life and to interests connected with it, that work will lose 
much of the interest and meaning that might attach to it. It will be 
in danger of becoming too narrow in scope, and of being less well 
done than would otherwise be the case; and, at the same time, the 
activities of leisure hours will lose much of their efficiency and interest 
by not being associated with the activities that are called work. 

* See above, p. 326. 



APPENDIX E* 

Provinces of England and Wales 



Suggested sub-division of England and Wales into tenor twelve educational 
provinces that might ivith great advantage become administrative 
units for several other purposes of local government. 



Province and University Centre(s) 
I. Northern Newcastle — Durham 



2 . Yorkshire 

3. North- Western 

4. Wales 

5. North-East- 

Midland 

6. Eastern 

7. West-Midland 

8. Western 

9. South-Midland 
ro London 



Leeds — Sheffield 
Manchester — Liverpool 

Cardiff — Aberystwyth — 
Bangor — Swansea 

Nottingham — Leicester 
— Derby 

Norwichf 

Birmingham 

Bristol 

Reading! 
London 



11. Southemll Southampton 

12. South- WesternTI Exeter — Plymouth 



Geographical Counties 

Northumberland, Durham, 
Cumberland (and perhaps 
the Cleveland District) 

Yorkshire (except perhaps 
Cleveland) 

Lancashire, Cheshire, West- 
morland 

Wales and Monmouth 

Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, 
Leicester, Rutland, North- 
ampton (except Soke of 
Peterborough) 

Norfolk, Cambridge, Hunt- 
ingdon, Suffolk, North- 
ampton (Soke of Peter- 
borough only) 

Stafford, Salop, Warwick, 
Worcester, Hereford 

Gloucester, Wiltshire, 
Somerset 

Oxford and Berkshire 

Essex, Hertford, Bedford, 
Buckingham, Middlesex, 
Kent, Surrey, Sussex§ 

Hampshire, Dorset 

Devon, Cornwall 



* See above, p. 366; and Chapter 25, § 2. 

■{■ Norwich is only now contemplating a university' college that may become 
the provincial university of East Anglia. Cambridge is not reckoned as the 
university centre on account of its national and non-local quality. 

% Oxford is not reckoned as the university centre on account of its national 
and non-local quality. 

§ Sussex might later become a thirteenth province, with Brighton as its 
university centre. 

II As Reading forms the natural university centre for the northern parts of 
Hampshire, and as Bristol serves parts of Dorset better than does Southampton, 
it might be well to omit this sub-division for the present; to include Dorset with 
the Western province centred in Bristol; and to include Hampshire with the South- 
Midland province, making Southampton a second university centre to Reading. 

^ Pending the further development of university education in Exeter, and 
the establishment of the proposed British- American University in Plj^mouth, the 
South- Western province should be merged in the Western province, having its 
university centre in Bristol, with Exeter as a subsidiary centre. 



APPENDIX F* 

Particulars of the Higher School Certificate Examination as held 
by the Joint Matriculation Board in 1919. 

Group I. Greek, Latin, Greek and Roman History. 
Group II (A). English Literature, French, German, Itahan, 
Russian, Spanish, History, Latin, Pure Mathematics. 

Group II (B). Economics, Geography, History, French, German, 
Itahan, Russian, Spanish. 

Group III. Pure Mathematics or Higher Pure Mathematics, Ap- 
pHed Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology, Geography. 
Candidates must pass in one of the four Groups (I, II (A), II (B), 
III), and '' 

in one subject (Subsidiary) which is not included in that particular 
Group, except that 

if Group II (A) is presented, either English Literature or Latin 
or Pure Mathematics may be taken as the Subsidiary subject 
when not taken as a Full subject of the Group; 
if Group II (B) is presented, either Economics or Geography may 
be taken as the Subsidiary subject when not taken as a Full 
subject of the Group. 
To pass in Group I, candidates must satisfy the Examiners in the 
three subjects of the Group taken as a whole. 

To pass in Group II (A), candidates must satisfy the Examiners 
in three subjects of the Group taken as a whole, in which a language 
other than English must be included, but not more than two such 
languages may be taken. 

To pass in Group II (B), candidates must satisfy the Examiners 
in three subjects of the Group taken as a whole, in which a language 
and either Economics or Geography must be included. 

To pass in Group III, candidates must satisfy the Examiners in 
three subjects of the Group taken as a whole. 

The Oral Examinations in French, German, Italian, Russian, and 
Spanish, and the Practical Examinations in Science subjects, will be 
held at the University Centres, and may be held elsewhere at the 
discretion of the Board. The Board will require the Laboratory note- 
books of any of the candidates who present themselves for examination 
in a Science subject, and the Examiners may take account of them. 
* Appendix F is a note for which room could not be found on p. 387 above. 



APPENDIX G* 

An Over-Estimate {made in July, 1919) of the Annual Cost of 
a National Scholarship System. 

In order to estimate the maximum sum required to provide 
scholarships and maintenance allowances that will bring every kind of 
education — when already provided according to our diagram (facing 
p. 319 above) — within the reach of all children and young people of 
sufficient educational promise, irrespective both of their place of 
residence in England and Wales and of their private financial circum- 
stances, we consider first the case of boys and young men belonging 
to a province inhabited by 5,000,000 people. 

Our diagram shews 50,000 boys receiving secondary education 
between the ages of twelve and fourteen. Of this number, 30,000 have 
been transferred by means of scholarships and maintenance allowances 
from Elementary Schools which they attended up to the age of twelve. 
If we suppose that every one of these 30,000 boys will require a 
maintenance allowance of five shillings a week in order to enable his 
parents to meet the extra cost — including travelling expenses, but not 
fees (since, as we observed in § i of Chapter 25 above, the Education 
Act of 1918 prevents young people from being debarred by inability 
to pay fees from receiving a type of education by which they are 
capable of profiting) — of sending him to a Secondary or Junior 
Technical School instead of to an Elementary School, we shall have 
over-estimated rather than under-estimated the cost of the scholarship 
system, so far as junior secondary education is concerned. For we 
shall assume that there is no question of providing maintenance 
allowances to boys and girls who remain at ordinary Elementary 
Schools or transfer to Central Elementary Schools there to remain 
at least until the age of fourteen, when the Education Act of 1918 
ceases to oblige them to remain whole-time at school; and we may 
assume that those boys who were receiving preparatory education 
before the age of twelve will not need scholarships or maintenance 
allowances in order to enable them to receive junior secondary 
education between the ages of twelve and fourteen. Scholarships and 
maintenance allowances sufficient to enable half the male population 
of the province to receive secondary education between the ages of 
twelve and fourteen will therefore cost, at most, ;^390,ooo a year. 
The scholarships and maintenance allowances necessary to keep 
* Appendix G is a note on § i of Chapter 25; see especially p. 454. 



500 APPENDICES 

the 50,000 boys at school from fourteen to sixteen will, in the case 
of the poorest boys, have to be considerably increased in value beyond 
the five shillings a week that should suffice between the ages of 
twelve and fourteen. For the alternative to continued secondary 
education between fourteen and sixteen is not, as in the case of 
secondary education between twelve and fourteen, whole-time 
education in an Elementary School, but lucrative employment. The 
poorest parents, if they are to be able to give up their son's weekly 
earnings in order that he may continue to receive secondary education, 
must therefore receive a maintenance allowance comparable with, but 
certainly not greater than, the money he might be earning. If we 
take fifteen shillings a week as the upper Umit of the scholarship and 
maintenance allowances at this stage, and if we assume that, of the 
50,000 boys in question, 44,000 will need scholarships and maintenance 
allowances of this amount, we shall again have over-estimated the 
total sum of money needed for scholarships and maintenance allow- 
ances between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. The upper limit of 
the annual sum at which we thus arrive is £1,716,000. 

The number of boys or young men selected from a province of 
5,000,000 people to receive whole-time education between the ages 
of sixteen and eighteen is, according to our diagram, 14,000. The 
earning power between these ages is again greater than the earning 
power of boys between fourteen and sixteen years of age. If we 
assume that thirty shilhngs a week will suffice to enable a boy between 
sixteen and eighteen, however poor his parents, to continue to receive 
the advanced secondary or senior technical education for which he 
has been selected, we shall not be under-estimating the sum required. 
If then we further assume that 10,000 of the 14,000 boys in question 
will require maintenance allowances of this amount we shall again 
be over-estimating. The maximum sum at which we thus arrive is 
£780,000 a year for the province in question. 

The earning power at undergraduate age is greater still. More- 
over, there is no obligation upon local authorities to pay the fees of 
necessitous quahfied students beyond the age of eighteen. The amount 
of an undergraduate scholarship must, therefore, be sufficient to meet 
the cost of fees as well as of other expenses of Hfe in a university. It 
is, however, safe to assume that £4* a week, or £208 a year, is sufficient 
to enable any young man, however poor his parents, to enter fully 
into the undergraduate Hfe of any university except Oxford or 

* Note added in January. 1921. — Principally because of the general rise in 
university fees since July, 1919, ;^4 here replaces the original estimate of £1. The 
subsequent figures have been amended accordingly. 



APPENDIX G 501 

Cambridge. If we assume that all except 1,000 of the 6,000 men 
undergraduates selected according to our diagram from a province 
of 5,000,000 people will require the full amount of this maintenance 
allowance, we shall again be over-estimating rather than under- 
estimating. The annual cost for undergraduate scholarships in the 
province would, on this assumption, be ;^i,040,ooo a year. 

Finally let us suppose that, of the 6,000 undergraduates, 2,000 
remain up for, on the average, a further two years of advanced study 
and research, and that all these men require scholarships and mainten- 
ance allowances at the rate of £4 a week in order to enable them to 
postpone entering remunerative employment until the age of twenty- 
three or thereabouts. The annual cost for research scholarships will 
then be ;£4i6,ooo, of which a considerable proportion may be defrayed 
by industrial research associations, as well as by individual industrial 
and commercial concerns in whose interests it is necessary that the 
present supply of university trained researchers be increased. 

The maximum total annual cost of scholarships and maintenance 
allowances for the boys and young men of a province of 5,000,000 
people is thus ;;^4,342,ooo. The maximum total annual cost for the 
whole of England and Wales may be reckoned at seven times this 
figure, or ;f 30, 394,000. Be it remembered, however, that this is a 
maximum, and that it may very greatly exceed the sum required. 
Indeed it is not improbable that half this sum would suffice. In that 
case the whole cost of the scholarships and maintenance allowances 
for England and Wales would only be a little more than £15,000,000 
for boys and young men, and say £10,000,000 for girls and young 
women : or a total of about £25,000,000, being less than the annual 
public expenditure* on elementary education in England and Wales 
in the year 1913-14. So we may take it that the whole cost of the 
scholarships and maintenance allowances (but not of the teachers, 
the sites and buildings, or the equipment) that would be necessary 
to bring into operation the system of education represented in our 
diagram for boys and young men, and a similar system for girls and 
young women, would probably be less than the sum annually spent 
on public elementary education in England and Wales before the War. 
We need not therefore regard it as prohibitive. Indeed, as Mr Fisher 
has lately (January, 1921) observed, a Nation that can afford to 
spend £400,000,000 a year on drink, and £100,000,000 a year on 
tobacco, is not quite at the end of its resources. 

* ^25,856,000, according to the Seventh Report from the Select Committee 
on National Expenditure (21st December, 1910). 



502 



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504 APPENDIX H 

REFERENCES. 

(i) One Endowed Scholarship, ;^50. Three years. Vaiue as fraction of ic^. rate = 
•02sd. 

(2) Two Endowed Scholarships (one boy, one girl) offered annually, £75 to £100 

per annum each for three years. Value, as fraction of id. rate, is about -iSd. 

(3) Two Endowed Scholarships, £^0 each. One to three years. Value, expressed 

as fraction of id. rate, =-044^. Grants by way of loan are made by this 
Education Committee to promising students who have matriculated and 
desire to enter Liverpool University. 

(4) Seven Endowed Scholarships aggregating £195 per annum are offered. The 

total ' rate ' value of all Scholarships offered is about -26^., of which -iidd. 
is endowed. These figures do not include a ;^50 Art Exhibition or two 
Scholarships for Student Teachers offered by this Authority. 

(5) One Endowed Scholarship of £35 is increased to £50 by Local Authority if 

holder is son or ward of a resident in Bury. The total value of Scholarships 
offered, expressed as a fraction of id. rate, is -34^., of which -o^d. is 
endowed. 

(6) ;^6o set aside annually for Grants-in-aid, to assist deserving pupils at school, 

college, university, etc. The 'rate' value of this is -oyd. (University 
Scholarship holders cannot claim this.) 

(7) The figure given in first column includes contribution to maintenance of part- 

time as well as of University courses in the [College] of Technology. 

(8) Seven Endowed Scholarships aggregating ;^40o per annum are offered. Total 

'rate' value of all Scholarships offered is •2gd., of which -20^. is endowed. 
Students may obtain payment of travelling expenses to [College] of 
Technology, Manchester, provided their attainments are such as will 
enable them to profit by instruction there, and their age is under twenty- 
one years. 

(9) The £50 Scholarship is a 'Local Science and Art Exhibition,' only half the 

cost of which is borne by the Rochdale Authority. The total 'rate' 
value of all Scholarships ofifered is -ijd., of which -o^d. is paid by the 
Board of Education. 

(10) Of the (a) Scholarship ^^35 is given by the Council of the Manchester University 

out of funds provided by the Salford Education Committee. The re- 
maining £25 is paid by the Salford Education Committee. The whole 
amount of both Scholarships is included in the figures given in the second 
column. 



INDEX 



Aberystwyth, 497 

Ability. See ' General ability ' 

Abnormal educational paths, 429, 430 

Absolute truth, 196 

Absorption, 272 

Abstract, 187, 190, 193, 197, 198, 213, 

233, 251, 267. 343, 344, 356-8, 361, 

362, 377, 382 
Action, 72, 146, 153, 224, 225, 265, 273 

et seq., 286, 289, 290 

— freedom of, 225 

Active education, 346, 347, 464 
Activity, 28, 66, 74, 81, 84, 248 
Adams, Professor John, 5, 12-18, 21, 

22, 102, 290, 292, 312, 378, 444, 

469-71, 473-5 
Administration, industrial, 400, 414, 

466 
Administrator, 328 
Adrenal glands, 133 
Adrenin, 133 
Advanced part-time studies, 368, 413, 

414, 428, 430, 442 

— secondary studies, 349, 370, 373, 
383-90, 411, 413, 416, 420, 441, 

443 
Advisory committee, 426 
Aesthetic satisfaction, 250-4, 274, 284, 

285 
Affect, 54 
Affective, 52, 54 

Affective-conative, 54, 89, 238, 298 
Afferent, 29 
After-discharge, 84 
aydTTTj, 259, 302, 308 
Age of transfer, 369, 445 
Aim of education, 21-3, 244, 312 
Alexander, Professor S., 241 
Alington, Rev. C. A., 338, 340 
Alternating reflexes, 76 
Alternative Matriculation test, 395 
Amateur, 357, 358 
America, 303, 371, 403, 404, 436 
American Journal of Insanity, 100, loi, 

130, 154 
Amiel, 299 
Analysis, 198 
Anger, 52, 166 
Apprentice, college, 350, 353, 402, 408, 

431 

— Master, 350, 409, 414, 420, 421, 
42 4, 450 

— special, 430, 431 

— trade, 325, 430 
Apprenticeship, 136, 418, 424, 430, 449 
Approved purpose, 144, 145 

Arc, nervous, 29, 34 
Archer, Professor R. L., 339, 397, 398, 
402 



Archimedes, 82, 248, 274 

Architect, 276 

Aristotelian Society, 51, 53, 54 

Aristotle, 6 

Arnold, Matthew, 471 

Arrow, 374, 459, 460, 463. See also 

' Scholarships ' 
Art, 373. 4" 
Artaxerxes, 285 
Association, 45 

— areas, 33 

— by similarity, 122 
Association of Technical Institu- 
tions, 369, 425 

Athens, 14 

'Atmosphere,' 432 

Attention, 99, 118, 128, 272, 273 

Aural instruction, 377 

Australia, 205, 302, 394, 472 

Authority, 304 

Automatic, 377 

Autonomic, 132 

AvEBURY, Lord, 378 

Bachelor of Arts, 399. See also ' Degree ' 

Bacon, Francis (Lord Verulam), 433 

Bain, 69, 122 

Ballard, P. B., loi, 113, 132 

Bangor, 497 

Beauty, 249, 251, 252, 433 

Behaviour, consistency of, 224 

— efficiency of, 224 

Being, omniscient, 199, 208, 214, 236, 

237 
Bergson, Henri, 5, 7, 8 
Berkeley, 151 
Bertrand, a., 470 
Bias, due to interest, 86 
BiNET, Alfred, 9, 98, iii, 118 
Biometry, 104 
Bi-polar conflicts, 177 
Birmingham, 393, 425, 437, 497 
Blind-alley occupations, 425, 426 
Board of Education, 212, 446, 447, 

449, 452, 458. 470, 501 
Books, school, 333, 381 
BooTLE, 418, 419 
Boston (Massachusetts), 411, 417 
Boundary essence, 214 
Boy labour, 429 

— Scouts, 422, 428 
Brain and mind, 8-9 

Branch endarchy, 208, 215, 241, 242, 

257 
Brereton, Cloudesley, 439 
Bristol, 497 

British Engineers' Association, 325 
British Science Guild, 371, 435, 438, 

439. 457 



5o6 



INDEX 



Brotherhood, 302 

Brotherly love, 302, 347 

Brougham, Lord, 244 

Brown, Dr William, 103, 117 

Bruce, Hon. W. N., 359, 360, 417 

Bryant, C. L., 348 

Burt, Cyril, 103, 105, 109, no, 112, 

1 13-8, 166, 321, 367, 381, 460, 

475-81 

Cambridge, 144, 349, 359, 374, 393, 

403, 404, 438, 456 
Campagnac, Professor E. T., 393, 411 
Canada, 394 
Canalise, 43, 115, 154 
Canals, semi-circular, 175 
Cannon, W. B., 133 
Canterbury, 441 
Cardiff, 497 
Carlyle, Thomas, 294 
Carnivor, 197 
Castiglione, 15 
Censor, 148, 151 
Central Elementary School, 369, 423, 

451. 452 

— elements in personal endarchies, 
230, 237, 239 

— essences, 311 

— flow of excitement, 94, 163, 208, 
224, 225, 244, 281, 282, 286 

— purpose, 334, 342, 347 

— teacher, 270 
Cerebrum, 31 

Certificate, School, examination, 338, 
387. 393. 395. 396, 462 

— Higher School, examination, 387, 
390, 392, 393. 396. 397. 498 

Chairs, professorial, 216 
Character, 64, 94, 100, 155, 156, 187, 
224, 244, 290 et seq., 314 

— strong, 299, 314 
Chemists, 196, 237, 279, 290 
Chesterfield, 16 
Chesterton, G. K., 192, 296, 336 
Childhood, 23, 339, 340 

Christian, 241, 259, 303 et seq., 334, 335 

— character, 308, 311, 315, 316 

— Church, 309 

— purpose, 309, 340 
Christiania swing, 175 
Christianity, 305 et seq. 
Churchill, Winston, 322 

Circuit, short-, 230, 237, 351, 354, 356 
Circular nervous process, 53, 60, 82, 92, 

166, 277, 278 
Citizen, 301, 302, 305, 326, 327, 426--7 
Civil Service, 324, 472, 473 
Classical side, 358, 387, 390, 417, 462 
Classics, 338, 358, 359, 381, 386, 387, 

389 
Classification of services, 326 
Cleveland, 497 
Cleverness, 118 et seq., 129, 155, 156, 

157, 158, 188, 291, 294, 485 
Cobalt glass, 184, 185 
Cognitive, 52 



Coherence, 339, 356, 358, 359 
CoLET, John (Dean of St Paul's), 433 
College apprentice, 350, 353, 402, 408, 

431 
College of Technology (Manchester), 

330, 371, 405, 414, 438, 441 
Cologne, 436 

Colour, 193, 218, 265, 372, 373 
Common fund of energy, 118, 226 
Commonwealth, 232, 241, 302, 345 
Community, 227, 232, 240, 241, 289, 

293, 296, 299 
Complete endarchy, 197, 208, 213, 221, 

248 

— fact, 195, 443 
Complex, 61, 62, 63, 64 
Complication, 69 
Comprehensiveness, 339, 356, 358, 359, 

360, 361 
Conation, 52 
Concentration (or reinforcement), 99, 

128, 180, 234, 281 
Concept, 196, 218, 358 
Concomitant, 190, 198 
Concrete (adj.), 193, 197, 214, 343, 344, 

356, 358 

— things, 191, 192, 193 

— (noun), 382 

Conditions, correlation between col- 
umns, 110-12, 479 

— for a hierarchy, 104-10, 475-8 

— satisfied by endarchy of science, 
203 

Conduct, 226, 240, 281, 282, 290, 314, 

473 
Conduction, law of forward, 183 (see 

also pp. 33-34) 
Conflict, 64, 97, 141, 142, 168, 174, 175, 

176, 177, 224, 237, 240, 255, 268, 

284, 285, 287, 292, 300, 301, 313 

— types of, 169 
Conscience, 284, 285 
Conscious control, 168, 175, 240 

— purpose, 144, 145 

— work, 256 

Consistency, 160, 224, 283, 285, 293 
et seq. 

Constructive instinct, 277, 382 

Consultative Committee of the 
Board of Education, 15, 338, 341, 
349. 350. 359, 362, 391, 396, 412, 
442, 443, 454, 459, 463, 469 

Consulting practice. University Teach- 
ers', 406, 407, 464 

Continuity in education, 349-50, 351, 
360, 366 

— in thought, 67 
Copernicus, 3 
Corollary to third law, 89 
Correlation, 104-27, 156-60, 477 et seq. 

— between columns, 110-12, 479, 480 

— partial, 159, 489 
Correlatives, 145 
Cortex, 31, 32, 33 
Cosine law, 484 

Cost of education, 4, 21, 374, 454, 501 



INDEX 



507 



Cotton, 423, 424, 426 

Council for Organising British 

Engineering Industry, 325, 391, 

420, 425, 502 
Craftsman, 329 
Creative thinking, 258 
Credulity, 297 
Crewe, Marquis of, 405 
Cromer, Earl of, 473 
Crusoe, Robinson, 227, 288 
Culture, 6, 357, 360, 471, 472 
Curiosity, 91-94, 221, 226, 236, 245-8, 

256, 259, 263, 300, 314 
Curriculum, 337, 338, 348, 349, 359, 

362, 381, 384, 390, 417, 423, 426, 

427, 432, 470 

Dalton, John, 191 
Dartmouth, 418 

Darwin, Charles, 72, 132, 219, 246 
David, Dr A. A., 338 
Deduction, 263, 264, 265 
Deductive reasoning, 262, 264-6, 268, 
286 

— syllogism, 261, 262, 263 
Defective, mentally, 278, 321, 362, 367 
Definite fact, 191, 194 

Degree, honours, 392, 397, 402, 410, 
440. 455. 466 

— pass (or ordinary), 339, 392, 397, 
399, 402, 413, 466, 467 

— research, 403, 418, 464 

— technical, 400, 409 
D6j6rine, 294 
Delivigne, Sir Malcolm, 330 
Denmark, 372 

Department of Scientific and In- 
dustrial Research, 404 

Depth of neurogram, 44, 88, 89 

Derby, 497 

Derived essences, 119, 203, 209, 239, 
260 

Diagram, flow {facing page), 319 

Diagrammatic representation of facts, 
213 

Diagrams, list of. See ' Figures ' 

Diesel engine, 360 

Differences. See ' Individual differences ' 

Diffusion, 69, 180, 273, 282 

Dignity of labour, 279 

Dimensions, 129, 156, 157, 277 

Direct experience, facts of, 214 

Discovery, 41, 196, 248, 254, 256, 259, 

305 

Disgust, 51 

Disintegration, 168, 174, 182 

Disorder, 264 

Displacement, 168, 169, 172, 173, 174, 
184, 185 

Disposition, 42 

Distress, 51, 167, 248 

Division of labour, 311. See also 'Indi- 
vidual differences ' 

Doctor of Philosophy, degree of, 403, 
464 

Dogma, 297 



Domestic occupations, 411 

— subjects, 386 
Dotting apparatus, 11 3-1 4 
Double personality, 170 

Drainage of nervous impulses, 45, 75, 

79, 89, 129, 289 
Drawing, 386 
Driesch, Hans, 189 
Durham, 456, 497 

Economics, 400 
Economy of effort, 211, 223 
— • of thoughrt, 223, 250, 288 
Educability of ' g,' 138, 266 
Educand, 12, 356, 360, 470 
Education (in Book II), 212, 223, 243, 
244, 279, 292, 296, 311 et seq 

— Act (1918), 323, 415, 421, 423, 425, 
447, 448, 449, 453 

(1902), 455 

— active, 347, 464 

— aim of, 244, 312 

— girls', 367. 386, 411, 413 

— passive, 346, 465, 470 

— private, 323 

— types of. See ' Types ' ' 
Education Reform Council, 424, 456, 

457 
Educator, 231, 243, 245, 269, 314, 400 

— pupil his own chief, 271, 314, 400 
Effective conduct, 224, 283, 293 
Efferent, 29, 37, 57 

Efficiency of thought organisation, 

211 
Efficient reasoning, 223 
Effort, 141 
— ■ in organising thought, 211 
Eggar, W. D., 348 
Ego, 138, 258 
Einstein, Professor, 192 
Elegance, 252 

Elementary education, 366, 374, 377- 
83 

— School, 366-9, 372. 375. 380-3. 
423, 451, 452 

Central, 369, 423, 451 et seq. 

Eliot, George, 6 

Elliot Smith, Professor G., 331 

Emerson, 340 

Emotion, 51, 53, 54, 55, 231, 242, 249, 

259, 295, 345, 432, 465 
Empirical neurographic connexions, 
229-30 

— thought contrasted with reasoned 
thought, 187 

Emptying the mind, 148 

Endarchy, 161, 163, 180, 194-9, 201-3, 
206-13, 215-16, 220-23, 224, 225, 
227-34, 236, 237, 241-2, 247, 248, 
257, 269, 284. 313, 335 

— branch, 208, 215, 241-2, 257 

— complete, 197, 208, 213, 221, 248 

— imperfect, 236 

— incomplete, 199, 222, 269 

— maximal, 180, 206 et seq., 222, 224, 
225, 227, 247 



5o8 



INDEX 



Endarchy, partial, 196, 197, 198, 202, 
206, 208, 210, 215 

— personal, 196, 199, 219, 220, 231, 
232 et seq., 241, 242, 269 

— scientific, 228-34, 335 ^^ ^^Q- 

— subject, 196, 208, 215, 236 
Endarchy of science, 194-7, I99> 202, 

208, 215-7, 227, 237, 346, 361, 379, 

416 
Endowments, 438 
Energy, common fund of, 118, 226 
Engineer, 276, 353, 360, 390, 401, 402, 

419, 424, 430 
Engineering, 441 
Engineering, 325, 326, 349, 350, 353, 

354. 359, 361. 390, 391. 403. 408, 

409, 412, 420, 425. 426, 429, 430 
England, 4, 10, 319, 363-6, 371, 374, 

381, 382, 392, 395, 401, 435, 438, 

439- 453> 455- 456, 472 
English, 347, 348, 387, 388, 394, 396, 

418, 426, 462 
Engram, 42 
Epiphenomenon, 9, 95 
Erasmus, 433 

Error, probable, 106-9, 475. 476 
Essence. 180, 187, 190, 191, 193, 197 

et seq., 203, 211, 213, 214, 215, 

216-18, 229, 251, 260, 311 

— abstract, 187, 190, 191, 193, 197 
et seq., 251 

— boundary, 214 

— central, 311 

— derived, 119, 203, 209, 239, 260 

— first stage, 198, 199 

— general, 229, 234, 251 

— second stage, 199, 200 

— third stage, 200 
Ethical, 96, 97 
Ethics, 240, 314, 427 
Eton, 332, 338 
Euclid, 193, 344, 365, 380 
Europe, 14, 15, 303 
Ewing, Sir J. A., 401 
Examination, Higher School Certificate, 

387. 390, 393. 396, 397. 498 

— Matriculation, 392-6, 462, 471 

— School Certificate, 338, 386, 387, 
393. 395. 396, 462, 471 

— University Entrance, 393-6 
Excitement, 29, 47, 66, 74, 81, 82, 172, 

173. 175-84 
Exeter, 497 
Expenditure on Public Education, 4, 

21, 499-501. 502-4 
Experience, direct, 213 

— world of, 180, 189 

Expert, 232, 328, 352. 357, 358, 

389 
Explain, 265 

Facilitate, 128, 218, 266, 268, 285 
Fact, 187, 190, 191, 194-6, 199, 200, 
213-19, 266, 267, 268 

— abstract, 213-14 

— complete, 195, 443 



Fact, complex, 213, 215 

— concrete, 187, 213, 214, 267 

— definite, 191, 194 

— element, 195, 199, 213, 216, 217, 
266 

— general, 267 

— important, 194, 195 

— incomplete, 195 

— of direct experience, 191, 213, 214, 
215, 216, 218 

— real, 189, 190 

— simple, 199, 213-16 
Faculty, 99, loi 
Fairgrieve, James, 333 
Faith, 150, 297, 303, 307, 310 
Fatigue, 273 

Fear, 51, 54, 57, 58 

Federal Council of Lancashire and 
Cheshire Teachers' Associations, 

457 
Fees, 453. 499, 500 
Fer6, 78 



Fia1 


b, 140, 142 








Figures : 








I. ..30 8. 


.121 


14. 


.201 


2 


••53 9- 


•157 


15- 


.201 


3 


-75 lo- 


.178 


16. 


.204 


4 


..76 11. 


.182 


17^ 


•235 


5 


..80 12. 


.200 


18. 


.236 


6 


..87 13. 


.201 


19. 


•493 


7 


..114 









(See also diagram) 
Films, metallic, 264, 265 
First stage essences, 198, 199 
Fisher, The Right Hon. H. A. L., 323, 

425. 501 
Flechsig, Professor, 34 
Fleming, A. P. M., 325 
Flow (of excitement), central, 94, 163, 

208, 224, 225, 244, 281, 282, 286 
Flow diagram {facing page) 319 
Fluegel, J. C, 142, 148, 170, 172, 175, 

182, 185, 240 
Focus of consciousness, 47, 66, 67 
Foreign languages, 340, 379, 386, 387. 

400, 471 
Foreman, 329 
Formal training, 102 
Form-master, 270, 338, 346-9, 387-9, 

420, 465 
— sixth, 349, 350, 388, 389, 420, 

465 
France, 398 
Francis, M. E., 382 
Freedom, 97, 225, 300, 302, 309, 363 
French Revolution, 294, 303 
Frequency distribution, 368, 475 
Freud, Professor Sigmund, 124, 154, 

168, 169 
Fringe of consciousness, 35, 67, 68 
Froebel, 469 
Fuegians, 72, 246 
Functional system of nervous arcs, 37, 

277 
Fund, common, of energy, 118, 226 
Future, 143, 297, 491 



INDEX 



509 



Future interest, 152, 153, 154, 155, 159, 
160, 238, 282, 297, 491 

Galton, Francis, 104 

Games, 390, 418, 433 

Garnett, Dr William, 424 

Gauckler, 294 

Genera] ability, 103, 120, 123, 125, 127, 
129, 266, 278, 279, 292, 319, 333, 
341. 344. 353, 361, 362, 363, 364, 
376, 381, 383. 385. 399. 401. 460, 
461, 481 

— essence, 229, 234, 251 

— fact, 267 

— factor (g), loi et seq., 481. See also 
' General ability ' 

— intelligence, 102, 103, 127 

— laws, 190 

— sensory discrimination, 102 
Generalisations, 384, 385, 428 
Genius, 125 

Geography, 233, 348, 379, 386, 387, 3961, 

419, 424, 427 
Germany, 300, 332, 371, 398, 436, 441, 

446, 460 
Girl Guides, 422, 428 
Girls' education, 367, 386, 411, 413 
Glycosuria, 264 

Goal of scientific thought, 196, 287 
Goethe, 337, 470 
Gold, 193, 214 
Good purposes, 172 
GossE, Sir Edmund, 137, 333 
Government grants, 212, 458 
Graduate, 371 

Graduate study and research, 402-6 
'Greats,' 359 
Greece, 354, 389 
Greek, 354, 364, 382, 387, 462 
Green, J. R., 298 
Gregory, Sir Richard, 138 
Group factor, no, 112, 119, 476, 478, 

480 

— Cleverness, 119 et seq. See also 
' Cleverness ' 

— Dr Webb's, loi, 117, 119, 129, 
155 et seq., 476, 490 

Guiding of thought by neurograms and 
Will, 130 

Habit, 42, 43, 115, 152, 282, 288, 330 
Haldane, Viscount, 59, 328 
Hall, Sir Daniel, 341 
Hall, Dr G. Stanley, 297, 310, 384 
Hamilton, Sir WilHam R., 82 
Handels Hochschule, 436 
Handicraft, 379, 380, 382, 386 
Handwork, 278, 361, 362, 422, 423, 428 
Harmony, 142, 240, 244, 250, 284 
— •■ between interest-systems, 142 

— of purpose, 240, 244, 299 
Harrison, Frederic, 295 

Hart, Dr Bernard, 7, 47, 59, 61, 65, 79, 
90, 91, 96, 103, 113, 118, 127, 142, 
163, 169, 171, 173, 174, 175, 185 

Hartog, p. J., 473 

G.E. 



Head, Dr Henry, 31, 32, 53, 248 
Headlam, Professor W., 305 
Headmasters, Incorporated Asso- 
ciation OF, 341, 460 
Hedonistic, 249 
Hemispheres, cerebral, 34 
Herbart, 63, 86, 90, 290, 292 
Heuristic, 221, 224 
Hey, Spurley, 369 
Heymans, 161 
Hichens, W. L., 103 
Hierarchy, 104 et seq., 195, 477, 478 
High school (for girls), 413 
Higher level arcs, 34, 36 

— School Certificate Examination, 
387. 390, 393. 396, 397. 498 

— Secondary School, 366, 367, 369, 
370. 373. 383. 388, 389, 390. 392, 
412,417. 420, 443-5. 465 

Hill, Dr Alex, 13 

Historian, 292, 346, 347 

History, 347, 378, 379, 386, 387, 394, 

396, 424. 427. 433 
Hobby, 63, 90, 334, 495, 496 
Holiday, 334, 382, 495, 496 
Holmes, Dr Gordon, 31, 248 
Homework, 380 
Honours degree, 393, 397, 402, 410, 440, 

455. 466 

— course, 397 et seq., 409, 466 

— school, 386, 390, 392, 394, 396, 397, 
401, 402, 411, 444, 445 

Hope, 298, 303. 308, 315 
HoPKiNSON, Professor Bertram, 419 
Hours of labour, 427 
Housemaster, 347 
Humanist, 338 
Humanity, 301 
humberstone, t. l., 4o4 
Hume, 249 

Humour, sense of, 120-3 
Huxley, Professor, 8, 9, 12, 95, 399 
Hydro-mechanical model, 77 
Hypnotic suggestion, 144 
Hypothesis, 150, 260, 264, 265, 304, 
307. 309 

Idea, 45, 46, 47, 147, 233, 235, 276 
— • of an object, 47 
Identity theory, 183 
Ideo-motor, 140 et seq. 
Image, 38, 44 et seq., 69, 140, 225, 276 
Imagination, 6, 276, 277 
Immortality, 241, 298, 299, 307 
Importance of essences, 194-5, i99. 

202, 238, 304 
Impulse, 27, 28, 29, 30 
Incomplete endarchy, 199, 222, 269, 

385 
Individual differences, 225, 227, 228, 

232, 235, 240, 241, 242, 246, 266, 

303. 311. 313. 316, 319. 327. 344. 

351, 352, 363 
Induction, 265, 304 
Inductive syllogism, 262 
Industrial administration, 400, 414, 466 

33 



510 



INDEX 



Industrial bursaries, 408 

— history, 419 

— research, 404, 405, 406 

— statesman, 326, 328 

Industry, 325, 326-30, 406, 408, 409, 
411, 466 

— captain of, 323, 326, 328 
Infant school, 376 

Inge, W. R., Dean of St Pauls, 217 
Inhibition, 75, 76, 77, 141, 148, 149, 259 
Inspiration, 256, 257, 259, 260, 263, 

264, 265, 266, 274, 297, 304, 400, 

464 
Inspirational lectures, 400 
Instinct, 51 et seq., 138, 221, 245 et seq., 

268, 270, 271, 300, 302 

— Dr McDougall's definition, 52 

— neurograms, 53, 82 
Instrumental subjects, 16 
Insulation, 69, 80 
Integral Education, 270, 470 
Integrated mind, 244, 266, 269 
Integration, 168, 174, 175 
Intellective energy, 118 
Intellectual plane, 121 

— qualities, 121 et seq. 
Intelligence, 102, 103, 127 
Intensity of neurograms, 45, 88, 89 
Interest, 62, 85 

— single wide, 22, 23, 225, 243, 244, 
268, 281, 287, 311, 315 

Interest-system, 62-4, 86, 88, 94, 144, 
162, 163, 164, 166-8, 243 

— future-, 144, 146, 152, 153, 154, 
159-61, 238, 491 

Intermediate level, arcs of, 33 

— part-time education, 373, 420-2, 
428, 429, 430, 442 

— secondary education, 369, 370, 373, 
383-90, 413, 417, 444 

Interruption of trains of thought, 281, 

282, 285 
Interview for scholarships, 461 
Involuntary thought. Chapters 6, 13 



Jacobi, C. G. J., 137, 333 

James, Professor William, 23, 33, 
46, 47. 51. 54. 66, 69, 74, 77, 78 
82, 83, 89, 90, 96, 97, 99, lOI, 
125, 128, 130, 132, 138, 140, 
144, 147, 148, 149, 1.50, 151, 
174, 179, 183, 186, 189, 190, 
197, 198, 205, 214, 217, 218, 
230, 233, 234, 238. 257, 267, 
273, 274, 275, 277, 286, 287, 
292, 296, 297, 340. 376 

Janet, Professor, 169 

John, St, 241, 301 

Joint Matriculation Board, 

395 
Jowett, Professor, 216, 303 
JuDD, 427 
Jung, Dr, 61, 91 

Junior part-time education, 369, 4 
— secondary education, 370, 

383-90, 423. 462 



44. 
. 79. 

124, 

141. 
161, 
196, 
229, 

272, 
288, 



393. 



24-9 

373. 



Junior Technical School, 325, 369, 370, 
373. 417. 418, 419, 421, 425. 430 
445-8 

Justice, 300, 301, 302, 306 

Kant, 219 

Ken YON, Sir Frederic G., 392 
Kepler, 195, 196, 238, 248 
Kerschensteiner, Dr Georg, 279, 470, 

474 
Keynes, J. Maynard, 303 
Kinaesthetic, 30, 35, 59, 139, 277 
Kingdom of God, 306, 308, 311, 315, 

330 
Kipling's, Rudyard, Kim, 350 
Knife and fork studies, 378, 383 
Knowledge, 62, 188, 189, 194, 218, 235, 

237. 239, 244, 256, 308, 309, 335 

et seq., 357, 394, 473 

— about, 358 

— of, 358 
Kruger, 475 

Labour, division of, 311 
Lancashire, 423, 455 
Language. See ' Foreign languages ' 
Laplace, 215, 243 

Latin, 15, 354, 380, 382, 387, 462, 471 

Law, 7, 41, 65-94, 129, 190, 198, 199, 

313, 353. 384. 400, 428, 475, 484 

— cosine, 484 

— general, 190 

— normal probability, 1 1 2 et seq., 475 

— of forward conduction, 183 

— of nature, 65, 191 

— vector, 103, 157, 477 
Laws of thought, 289 

1st: Psycho-neural paralleUsm, 65 

2nd: Diffusion, 69 

3rd : Inhibition 79 (corollary to 3rd 
law, 89) 

4th: Psycho-physical interaction, 
129 

5th: Thought ends in action, 273 
Leading hand, 326, 329 
League of Nations, International 

Labour Organisation of the, 330 
Learn by doing, 59, 279 
Learned, 357, 394 
Learning, 244 
Leathes, Sir Stanley, 138, 296, 333, 

337. 338, 340. 347. 357. 380 
Lecturer, 400, 464 
Leeds, 293, 332, 497 
Leicester, 497 

Liberty {see also 'Freedom'), 363 
Light, 265 

Liverpool, 393, 455, 497 
Locke, J., 16, 249 
Lombard, 79 
London, 455, 497 
^— County Council, 367 

— University {see also Royal Com- 
mission), 393, 395 

Longridge, Michael, 436, 441 
Lotze, 286 



INDEX 



511 



LOUVAIN, 19, 332 

Love, 259, 300, 302, 307, 308, 315, 

347 
Lower (or Ordinary) Secondary School, 

324. 369. 370. 375. 382, 383, 413, 

417. 443-6, 452, 461, 462 
Lucas, Keith, 35 
Luke, St, 306 
Lyttelton, Hon. and Rev. E. S., 19, 

332 

Mach, 223 

Mackenzie, Compton, 433 
Major premise, 261 
Manager, works, 329 
Manchester, 330, 369, 393, 413, 414, 
415, 421, 425, 438, 439, 441, 449, 

45.5. 497 

— See also 'Technology' 
Manual workers, 232, 279 
Marlborough, 413 

— Master of, 23 
Marsupials, 205 
Mass influence, 434 
Mathematical Association, 348 
Mathematical side, 358, 390 
Mathematician, 256, 276, 292, 347, 365, 

433 
Mathematics, 345, 354, 356, 365, 386, 

387, 396, 424, 433 
Matriculation examination, 392-6, 462, 

471 
Matthew, St, 306 
Maximal endarchy, 180, 206 et seq., 222, 

224, 225, 227, 247 
Maxwell, James Clerk, 134, 297, 433 
McDouGALL, Dr William, 6, 9, 27-30, 

33. 34. 35. 36. 38, 39. 41. 42. 45. 

47-51, 52, 53, 54, 55-8, 60-3, 65. 

69, 70, 74-80, 81, 82, 84, 91, 92, 95, 

96, 99, 100, 113, 122, 123, 128, 130, 

132, 146, 154, 166, 183, 248, 249, 

274, 275, 276, 277, 341 
McKenna, Stephen, 434 
M'CoRMiCK, Sir William, 396 
Meaning, 45-6, 67, 68, 81, 91, 93, 187 
Medical studies, 321, 400, 402, 408 
Mellon Institute, 404, 405 
Memory, 38, 43, 44, 100, 116, 128, 279 
Mentally defective children, 278, 321, 

362, 367 
Mercier, Dr C. A., 20, 124 
MetaUic films, 264, 265 
Metallurgy, 400 

Mill, John Stuart, 12, 288, 401 
Milton, John, 16, 337, 433, 470 
Mind, 8 
Minimum path proposition, 209, 210, 

492 
Minor premise, 261 
Miscellaneous part-time studies, 414, 

422, 429, 442 
Mitchell, 79 
Modal age, 368, 377 
Modal child, 368, 377 
Mode (of frequency distribution), 368 



Modern humanities, 387, 389, 390 

— side, 358, 359, 390 
Montaigne, 16 
Mood, 62, 160 

Moral sense, 172 

MosELEY, H. G. J., 196 

Mott, Dr John R., 297 

Moulding the world, 218 

Moulton, Lord, 328 

MuiR, Professor Ramsay, 152 

Multiple stimulation, 83, 134, 179 

MuMFORD, Dr A., 341 

Murray, Professor Gilbert, 59 

Muscular sense, 30 

Music, 373, 411 

Names as essences, 198, 199, 356 
Napoleon, 215 
Natural science. S^^e ' Science ' 
Natural selection, 275 
Nature, 366, 456, 470, 472 
Nautical Almanac, 196 
Nebular hypothesis, 219 
Negative purpose, 145-7 
Negative self- feeling, 51, 248 
'Neglect of Science,' 472, 473 
Nehemiah, 285 
Neighbour, 300-3, 309 
Neural disposition, 42 
Neurasthenic, 294 
Neurin, 75, 76 
Neurogram, 27, 42 et seq. 
element, 191, 212 

— purpose, 143 et seq., 238 et seq. 
Neurograms, system of, 42, 44 
Neurography, 63, 132, 226 et seq., 291 
Neurone, 28 

Neurosis, 66 

New science, 223 

Newcastle, 497 

Newman, Cardinal, 337, 435, 436, 437 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 93, 94, 134, 192, 

195. 433 
Nomenclature, 201 
Normal Distribution, 112 et seq., 321, 

475 

— educational paths, 376, 385, 395, 
422, 430 

— probability law. See ' Normal Dis- 
tribution' 

Norwich, 497 

Notation. See 'Symbols' 

Nottingham, 497 

NuNN, Professor!?. Percy, 104, 334, 348 

Nursery education, 376, 377 

— school, 376 

(©-process, 148, 170, 182 

Obsession, 171 

Occupations, 319 

Old age, 298, 299 

Omniscient being, 199, 208, 214, 236, 

237 
Ordinary (or Lower) Secondary School, 

324. 369, 370. 375. 382, 383. 413. 
417, 443-6, 452, 461, 462 



512 



INDEX 



Ordinate, 367, 369 
Organisation of thought, 177 
Organised thought, 335 
Originality, 120-3 
Osborne, 418, 461 
OsTWALD, Professor, 290 

OUNDLE, 413 

Owens College, 432 
Oxford, 103, 349, 359. 374. 393- 403. 
433. 434. 435. 438 

Pain, 248 

Pantheists, 241 

Parent, 347 

Partial correlation, 159, 489 

— endarchy, 196, 197, 198, 202, 206, 
208, 210, 215 

Partridge, G. E., 161 
Part-time education, 345, 347, 349, 360, 
372. 373. 406, 413. 420. 424, 448 

— — miscellaneous, 413 e^ seq., 422, 
429, 431, 442 

— Secondary School, 369, 402, 425-9, 
448-51 

— secondary education, 424 et seq. 
Pass courses, 397, 398, 402 

— degrees, 339, 392, 397, 399, 402, 
413, 466, 467 

Passive education, 346, 465, 470 

Patellar reflex, 79 

Paul, St, 149, 150, 284, 297, 300, 306, 

307, 320, 363 
Pawlow, 47, 49 
Pear, Professor T. H., 331 
Pearson, Professor Karl, 104, 368 
Perception, 38, 46, 69 
Perry, Professor, 470, 472 
Persistence of motives, 155, 160, 490 
Personal endarchy, 196, 199, 219, 220, 

231, 232 et seq., 241, 242, 269 
Personality, 292 
Pestalozzi, 16, 21, 469 
Peter, St, 300 
Philosopher, 232 
Philosophy, 295, 296, 305, 306 

— degree of Doctor of, 403, 464 
Physical exercises, 386, 418 
Physicists, 191, 196, 237, 256, 259, 279, 

326, 433 

Pittsburg, 404, 405 

Plato, 3, 303, 320, 335, 336 

Pleasurable satisfaction, 248, 249 

Plymouth, 497 

PoiNCARfe, Henri, 7, 8, 85, 90, 92, 190, 
193, 194, 195, 199, 217, 219, 223, 
249-58, 260, 264, 268, 274, 356 

Polytechnics, 368, 412, 441 

Positive purpose, 145 

— self-feeling, 51, 248, 298 
Potential, higher, loi 

— lower, loi 

PouLTON, Professor E. B., 382 
PouLTON, Ronald, 382 
Practical instruction, 377 

— man, 286 

— work, 278, 279 



Practice, consulting, 406, 407, 464 

Pragmatism, 189. 296 

Prayer, 285 

Preliminary one year undergraduate 

courses, 392, 393, 463 
Preparatory education, 373-82, 467 

— School, 377-83 
Primary emotions, 51 

Prince, Dr Morton, 40, 42, 43, 44, 47-9, 
56, 59-64. 66, 77, 79, 96, loi, 244, 
258, 292, 331 

Principles, 267, 287, 343, 344, 346, 
352-7, 384, 428, 465 

Private Schools, 323 

— study, 380, 432 
Probability, 345 

— law, 112 et seq., 475 
Probable error, 106-9, 475. 476 
Professorial chairs, 216 
Progress, 287, 303, 304, 313 
Property, 229, 238 
Propositions, universal, 190 
Prosser, Dr C. A., 411, 417, 420 
Province, 319, 365, 366, 370, 439, 440, 

451. 456-8 
Provincial Education Authority. See 

' Province ' 
Prussianism, 303 
Psycho-analysis, 176 
Psychodynamics, 65 
Psychology, social, 222 
Psycho-neural parallelism, 65 
Psycho-physical interaction, 9, 95 et 

seq., 98, 132, 313 

— parallelism, 9, 65, 95 
Psychosis, 66, 289 
Psychostatics, 65 

Public School, 323, 333, 381, 413, 434, 

443. 448 
Purpose, 98, 141, 143-61, 172, 238, 
240, 244, 281, 282-5, 291, 294-302, 
306, 309, 311, 314-16, 334, 335, 
340-2, 347, 383. 386, 387. 420, 433, 
461, 490 

— and Will, 98, 155, 288 

— approved, 144, 145 

— Christian, 309, 340 

— good, 172 

— harmony of, 240, 244, 299 

— negative, 145, 147 

— qualities, 155-61, 490 
Purposefulness, 158 et seq., 161, 294, 

489-91 
Pyramidal cells, 32 

— tract, 32, 34, 36, 72, 73, 78, 139, 
153, 274, 277 

Pythagoras' theorem, 344, 364 

Quickness, 120-3 

Ramsay, Sir William, 20 
Rationalisation, 173, 174 
Reading, 497 
Reading, 379 
Real world, 62, 372 
Realisation, self-, 22 



INDEX 



513 



Reason, 199, 297 

Reasoned thought contrasted with 

empirical thought, 187 
Reasoning, 179, 186, 189, 191, 222, 223, 

239, 255, 257, 262, 265. 266-8, 313 

— deductive, 262, 264-6, 268, 286 

— efficient, 223 

— trains of, 223 
Reciprocal innervation, 75 
Reconstruction, Ministry of, 355 
Reflex, 154, 245, 282, 291 

Reims, 332 

Reinforcement or concentration, 99, 

128, 180, 234, 281 
Relativity, 347 
Religion, 294-9, 303, 334, 335, 347. 

488, 490 
Religious instruction, 296, 335, 347 
Report on Engineering Education and 

Research, 325, 502-4 
Report on Scholarships for Higher 

Education (Cd. 8291), 454, 463 
Repression, 148, 169, 170, 171, 176, 179, 

182, 184 
Research, 257, 364, 401-6, 435, 437, 

438, 463, 464, 465 

— association, 404, 405 

— degree, 403, 418, 464 

— Department of Scientific and In- 
dustrial, 404 

— industrial, 404-6 

— scholarships, 463 

Residence in universities, 374, 432, 

436-8 
Resistance, synaptic, 39-41, 50, 69, 

80, 81 
Rhodes scholarships, 435 
Richmond, Kenneth, 224, 258, 259, 

263, 266 
RicHTER, 299 
Rivers, Dr W. H. R., 341 
Robertson, T. Brailsford, 39 
Robinson, C. E., 333 
Robinson Crusoe, 227, 288 
Rolandic area, 32-4, 139, 278, 378 
Rome, 354, 389 

Rousseau, 16, 22, 287, 288, 380 
Rowntree, B. Seebohm, 415 
Royal Commission on University 

Education in London, 396, 400, 

401, 407, 414, 435 
Rugby, 338 
Rural districts, 423 
Ruskin, John, 321, 322 
Rutherford, Professor Sir Ernest, 196 

Sadler, Sir Michael, 332, 372 

St Andrews, 12, 401 

St Paul's School, 433 

Salford, 425 

Salvation, 307, 308 

Samoa, 300 

Sandwich system, 430 

Satisfaction, 248-53, 274, 284, 285, 298 

— aesthetic, 250-4, 274, 284, 285 

— pleasurable, 248, 249 



Schiller, 124 

Scholarships, 320, 366, 374, 375, 408, 

430. 439, 453 et seq. 
Scholarships for Higher Education, 

Report on, 454, 463 
Scholasticism, 238 
School, types of. See 'Types' 
School Certificate examination, 338, 

386, 387, 393, 395, 396, 462, 471 
Higher, 387, 390, 393, 397, 498 

— of Art, 373 

— of Commerce, 373 

— of Domestic Subjects, 373 
Schuster, Sir Arthur, 286 
Science, applied, 395, 400, 464 

— endarchy of, 194-7, ^99' 202, 208, 
215-17, 227, 237 

— natural, 191, 348, 388, 389, 394, 

472, 473 

— new, 323 

— side, 390 

Scientific endarchy, 228-34, 335 ^^ 
seq. 

Scotland, 371, 381, 430, 438, 444 

Scouts, Boy, 422, 428 

Scripture, ioi 

Secondary education, 4x5-20, 424-9. 
See also advanced, intermediate, 
senior, junior, and part-time se- 
condary education 

— Schools, 325, 346. 347, 362, 443-5. 
448, 450. See also Higher Secondary 
Schools, Lower Secondary Schools, 
and Part-time Secondary Schools 

Selection, 194, 227, 251, 319-25, 453 

Self-denial, 308 

Self-feeling, negative, 51, 248 

— positive, 51, 248, 298 
Self government, 444 

— realisation, 22 

regarding sentiment, 146, 152,285, 

299 
Selfishness, 22, 300, 301 
Semi-circular canals, 175 
Senior elementary education, 364, 369, 

373, 422-4, 429 

— part-time education, 373, 422, 
424-9 

— secondary education, 369, 373, 383, 
415-20, 462 

— technical education, 370, 373, 383, 
409-14, 442 

— Technical Schools, 325, 368, 373, 
375, 412-X4, 430, 440-2, 456. 457. 
465 

Sensation, 31, 32, 36, 38 

— -reflex, 36, 37 
Sensori-motor arc, 29, 30, 36 
Sensory area, 32-34 
Sentiment, 58 et seq., 288 

neurograms, 58 

— self-regarding, 146, 152, 285, 299 
Separate subjects, 212, 215, 216, 223, 

269, 336-8, 346, 356, 384, 393, 470, 

474 
Sermon on the Mount, 290 



514 



INDEX 



Service, 227, 289, 302, 303, 308, 319, 

322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 345, 357, 

360, 363, 372, 416, 422, 427, 460 
Shand, a. F., 52, 56, 58, 96, 299 
Sheffield, 393, 403, 497 
Shell-shock, 171, 331 
Sherrington, Professor C. S., 31, 35, 

79, 83, 84, 245 
Shipbuilders, 430, 431 
Shoreditch, 419 

Short-circuit, 230, 237, 351, 354, 356 
Shrewsbury, 338 
Similarity, 122 
Simple essence, 229 
Simple fact, 199, 213-16 
Single general factor, 103 et seq., 109 

et seq., 476 et seq. See also 'General 

Abihty' 
Single wide interest, 22, 23, 225, 243, 

244, 268, 281, 287, 311, 315 
Sixth form, 349, 390, 444, 465 

master, 349, 388, 465 

Skeletal system, 29, 30, 378 

Skill in thinking, 327, 385, 399 

Sleep, 148, 273 

Sleight, Dr W., 102 

Smith, May, loi 

Smith, Professor G. Elliot, 331 

Smithells, Professor W., 3 

Social psychology, 222 

Sociology, 378 

Socrates, 14 

SoDDY, Professor, 196 

Sodium, 264, 265 

Soldiers, 82, 164, 168 

Somnambulism, 169, 170 

Soul, 8, 9, 16, 17, 95-7, 99, 128, 138, 

141, 143, 149. 150 
South Pole, 300 
Southampton, 497 
Spearman, Professor W., 96, 102-5, 

109, 112, 113, 117-20, 427, 475-81 
Special apprentices, 430, 431 
Specialist teacher, 270, 347 
Specific education, 13 

— factor, no et seq., a,']'] et seq. 
Spencer, Herbert, 16, 471 
Spinal cord, 30, 33, 131 

— reflexes, 35, 138 
'Spinal' dogs, 35, 83 
Standard deviation, 475 

— neurography, 228 
Statesmen, 326, 328 
Stevenson, R. L., 298, 340 
Stories, 378, 379 

Stout, G. F., 56 

Strachan, James, 341, 365 

Struggle for existence, 275 

Strychnine, 77 

Student-hours, 212 

Study, contrasted types of, 351-62 

— private, 380, 432 
Sublimation, 168, 169, 172 
Subliminal, 258 
Sub-conscious, 259 

Sub-normal children, 278, 279, 362, 367 



Subject, 62, 212 

— endarchies, 196, 208, 215, 236 
Subjects, separate, 212, 215, 216, 223, 

269, 336-8, 340, 356, 357, 470 
Summum bonum, 240, 284 
Sunderland, 430 
Superconscious, 258, 259 
Swansea, 497 
Sydenham, Lord, 332 
Syllogism, 261, 262 
Symbols, 28, 70, 146, 179, 190, 207, 208, 

233 
Synapse, 28, 39-41 
System of neurograms, 42, 44 

Teacher, 269-71, 322, 331, 346, 350, 
363, 402, 420. 433, 456, 457, 464 
et seq. 

— central, 270 

— part-time, 466 

— specialist, 270, 347 

— university, 464, 465 
Teachers' qualifications, 464 et seq. 
Team work, 434 

Technical education. See senior tech- 
nical education, and advanced, mis- 
cellaneous, and intermediate part- 
time education 

— School. See Technical School and 
Junior Technical School 

Technische Hochschule, 436 
Technology, College of (Man- 
chester), 330, 371, 405, 414, 438, 

441. 504 

— Faculty of (Manchester), 392, 396 
Teleological, 196, 234, 238, 240, 395 
Telephone exchange, 204 
Temperament, 161 

Temple, Dr William (Bishop of Man- 
chester), 8, 103, 137, 296, 333, 347. 

434 
Temptation, 179 295 
Tender emotion, 51, 302 
Terminal type of education, 358-61, 

373. 383, 384. 4". 416-18, 428 
Thalamus, 32, 36, 50, 53 
Theists, 241 
Theologians, 232, 347 
Things, 191, 196 
Things in themselves, 191, 196 
Thinking, voluntary, 138, 256 
Thomson, Professor G. H., 478 
Thomson, Sir J. J., 338, 343, 348, 350. 

358, 389. 392, 395. 396. 401. 404. 

406, 417, 420, 433, 446, 462 
Thorndike, Professor W., hi 
Thornton, J. S., 372 
Thought-activity, 47 

— organisation of, 177 

— organised, 335 
Threshold, 86 

Times Educational Supplement, 348 
Tiredness, 273 
Toy, 377 
Trades, 279 
Tradesman, 326, 329 



INDEX 



515 



Trains of reasoning, 223 
' Transfer,' 102, 320 
Transfer, age of, 369, 445 
Transitional type of education, 356, 

358-61, 373, 383, 385, 390, 416, 417, 

429 
Trinity College, Cambridge, 433 
Tripos, 386 
Trotter, W., 174 
Truth, 189, 196, 260, 301, 306, 309 
Tutorial superintendence, 374, 432, 436 
Types of education, 351-5, 372, 373, 

376 et seq. 

1. Graduate study and research, 

402-6 

2. University part-time, 406-9 

3. Undergraduate, 397-402 

4. Advanced part-time, 413, 414 

5. Miscellaneous part-time, 414 

6. Advanced secondary, 383-90 

7. Senior technical, 409-13 

8. Intermediate part-time, 420-2 

9. Senior part-time, 424-9 

10. Intermediate secondary, 383-90 

11. Senior secondary, 415-20 

12. Junior part-time, 424-8 

13. Junior secondary, 383-go 

14. Senior elementary, 422-4 

15. Preparatory, 377-83 

16. Elementary, 377-83 

17. Nursery, 376, 377 

Types of school, 365, 373, 374, 432 et seq. 

1. University, 435-40 

2. Senior Technical School, 440-2 

3. Higher Secondary School, 443-5 

4. Part-time Secondary School, 

448-51 

5. Lower Secondary School, 443-5 

6. Junior Technical School, 445-8 

7. Central Elementary School, 

423, 451, 452 

8. Private Preparatory School, 

380-3 

9. Public Elementary School (or 

Primary School), 380-3, 423, 
451. 452 

Unconscious, 44, 257, 258 
— • memory, 43 

— work, 256, 258 
Undergraduate, 349, 350, 371, 390, 397 

— studies, 350, 389, 393, 394, 397-402 
Unipolar conflicts, 1 76 

Unique effect of psychical activity, loi 
United States {see also 'America'), 

438 
Universal propositions, 190 
University, 349, 350, 359, 366, 370-2, 

386, 388, 406-9, 413, 435-40, 462, 

463. 497. 502, 503 

— Court, 440 

— entrance scholarships, 462-3 

— entra!fice tests, 393-6 



University, finance, 437-9 

— part-time courses, 368, 372, 406—9, 

413 

— teacher, 388, 464, 465 
Unpleasure, 248 

Utility of thought organisation, 211, 

212 
Utopia, 298 

Value^i94, 199, 207, 215, 216, 251, 258, 

342, 351-3. 384 
Variety of curricula, 385-7, 411, 414, 

417, 422, 428 
Vector law, 103, 157, 477 
Visceral, 29, 30, 132 
Visual instruction, 377, 378 
Visualisers, 276 
Volition, 98 
Voluntary attention, 115 

— movements, 139, 140 

— system, 30 

— thinking. Chapter 7, especially pp. 
138 et seq., and Chapter 14 

Wages, 427 

Wales, 454, 455, 456 

Walker, Professor Miles, 325 

Waller, Mary, 226 

Ward, H., 341 

Webb, Dr E., 98, 103, iii, 112, 129, 

135. 138, 155-61, 333. 460, 483-91 
Welfare workers, 421 
Welton, Professor J., 19 
Wells, H. G., 292, 321, 336, 363 
Whewell, William, 216 
Whitehall, 45, 46, 67 
Whitehead, Dr A. N., 14, 177, 196, 

220, 243, 268, 269, 357, 390 
Whitley Councils, 457 
Width (of interest-system), 89 
WiERSMA, 161 
Will, 38, 98 et seq., 129 et seq., 135 et seq., 

138 et seq., 255 et seq., 268 et seq., 

287 et seq., 291 et seq., 361, 482 

— and purpose, 98, 155, 288 
Wilson, President, 303 
Winchester, 333 

Wonder, 51, 92-4, 222, 236, 247, 248, 

256, 263, 300, 314 
Wood, Professor R. W., 264 
Workers Educational Association, 

372, 408, 424 
Workers, welfare, 421 
Works schools, 449 
World of experience, 180, 189 
Writing, 379 

York, 415 

Young persons, 453 

Yule, G. Udny, 104, 159, 490 

ZiMMERN, Professor A. E., 303 
Zone, 206, 207, 213 



CAMBRIDGE : PRINTED BY 

J. B. PEACE, M.A., 
AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 












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